Mohammed Bin Sulayem’s relationships with the FIA has entered a new era as he is chosen as one of the three new Formula1 race stewards. The United Arab Emirates’ automobile club President and FIA vice President was on duty in Turkey last Sunday and will be present at HungaroRing next month as well.

You might remember it, Bin Sulayem’s last encounter with F1 was not very pleasant! During Renault Roadshow in Dubai, he crashed the R26 Formula1 car while racing a Ford GT in drag at Dubai Autodrome.  Of course this has nothing to so with his new role, he might be a bit old to handle race cars, but as a manager he is capable of running Formula1 on his own! The man has been involved with motorsport all his life and comes from a family of politicians. He very well can be the next FIA president!

via: autoblog

pictures via Flickr

The first Renault Roadshow event will take place in Dubai this weekend and promises huge fun for petrolheads who like to see Renault’s Formula and touring cars, plus a lot of amusements for families.

The event will be held in an area of 2,537m² which is located at the waterfront promenade between The Dubai Mall and Souk Al Bahar in Downtown Burj Dubai.

Apart from usual roadshow stuff like doughnuts and drags and powersliding in racing cars, this event offers some unique features which make it a must-attend party! One of them is Mohammad Bin Sulayem, the rally legend who will be driving Renault’s Formula1 car and races Renault factory drivers in drags. Also, as for regional launch of new Koleos crossover, The car will be driven in Ski Dubai, Mall Of Emirates! They gonna make a mess of the place!

Here’s the full timetable of the events: (source: carmiddleeast)

Thursday, April 9

Get down to the Dubai Autodrome to see local Rally legend and FIA Vice-President, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, driving the Renault F1 cars in a series of drag races against a selection of supercars and 360bhp Renault Megane Trophy cars driven by Renault team drivers.

Catch all the action between 1.00-3.00pm. The paddock area will be closed to the public, but you can get access to the grandstands see everything from there.

Friday, April 10

There’s a parade on the Emaar Boulevard between 3.00-3.15pm. You’ll see the Renault Megane Trophy and Renault Toons cars.

The Roadshow performances will be at Emaar’s Downtown Burj Dubai on the purpose-built platform. Along with fellow team drivers and stunt driver, Terry Grant, driving various Renault cars and entertaining the crowds with a sensational display of driving skills, Nelson Piquet Jr will be demonstrating the Renault Formula 1 car.

There will be two Roadshow performances:
4.30pm-5.30pm
7.00pm-8.00pm

Saturday, April 11

Renault Roadshow performances at:
11.00am-12.00pm
2.00pm-3.00pm
4.30pm-5.30pm
7.00pm-8.00pm

Parade on the Emaar Boulevard
3.30pm-3.45pm

Sunday, April 12

The Renault Roadshow also marks the official launch of the Koleos – Renault’s first 4×4 – across showrooms in the region. The Koleos will be driven up and down the snow-covered slopes of Ski Dubai accompanied by candle-bearing skiers in a twilight procession (yeah, that’s what the press release said – even though Ski Dubai is indoors).

This event will also be closed to the public, however there are massive windows all around the Mall of the Emirates that allow you to see into Ski Dubai.

So be there at 9.00pm and you should be able to get to see the car driving in the ice. Look very closely, and you may even get to see an F1 car in there doing donuts – no, we’re really not kidding.

It couldn’t have been closer: after 24 hours of racing at the Dubai Autodrome, only 49.676 seconds separated the first- and the second-placed car in the fourth running of the TOYO TIRES 24H of Dubai. After a thrilling final hour of the race that saw no less than three changes of the lead, the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup, entered by German team Land Motorsport and  driven by Carsten Tilke, Gabriël Abergel, Andrzej Dzikevic and Niclas Kentenich, came out on top,

only just defending its lead from the charging Al Faisal Racing Team’s BMW Z4 M Coupé that was shared by Abdualziz Al Faisal, Paul Spooner, Claudia Hürtgen and Stian Sorlie. Third place was taken by another Porsche, the Besaplast Racing Team entry of Martin Tschornia, Franjo Kovac, former DTM-champion Kurt Thiim and the father-and-son pairing of Roland and Sebastian Asch.

All the experts and race fans agreed that this year’s fourth running of the TOYO TIRES 24H of Dubai was the most fascinating and exciting to date, the battle for victory going right down to the wire after 24 hours of spectacular motor racing action at the 5.43 kilometres long Dubai Autodrome, the state-of-the-art motor sports facility in the United Arab Emirates that hosted the event, organised by Dutch agency CREVENTIC in close co-operation with the Dutch National Racing Team.

The Autorlando-Porsche, which started from pole-position with Richard Lietz behind the wheel, and the identical Land Motorsport entry, driven by Marc Basseng, were able to pull a gap over Claudia Hürtgen with the Al Faisal Racing BMW Z4 on the first few laps. On lap seven, there was the first lead change as Basseng managed to overtake Lietz. But many of the pre-race favourites encountered trouble in the first few hours of the race already. The Equipe Verschuur’s Renault Mégane Trophy (Bernhard ten Brinke, Hoevert Vos, Harrie Koolen) and the Khaleji Motorsport-Porsche (Cabell Fisher, Tarek Elgammel, Jason Yates, Karim Ojjeh, Karim Al Azhari) became involved in a collision on the third lap already.

Later on, the Autorlando-Porsche lost about 45 minutes in the pits when the rear section of the car needed repair after another driver had run in to it. In the evening, the drivers of the Land Motorsport Porsche with starting number 41 (Hermann Tilke, Marc Basseng, Christian Land, Dirk Adorf) were left sidelined when their car caught fire at 22.50 h, causing the third of a total of six neutralisations of the race, in which a maximum speed of 60 km/h applied for all drivers. This so-called “code 60” is a particular feature of the TOYO TIRES 24H of Dubai and was well received by teams and drivers as it doesn’t affect the margins that have been built up during the race.

There was a close battle between the Al Faisal Racing BMW and the ARC Bratislava Porsche (Miroslav Konopka, Jiri Janak, Mauro Casadei, Rudiger Klos) for many hours during the night. Around 05.00 h, the BMW took the lead, partly as a result of its slightly better fuel-efficiency, and stayed there for the next couple of hours, with the ARC Bratislava-Porsche and the Porsches of the Besaplast Racing Team and Land Motorsport following closely.

Later in the morning, when the circuit was in bright sunshine again, the battle between the Al Faisal Racing BMW and the ARC Bratislava Porsche heated up again. With 1.10 hours remaining the BMW came into the pits with a puncture and resulting damage to the right rear bodywork of the car, which handed the lead to the ARC Bratislava Porsche. That team stayed in front for a while and looked on its way to victory, especially as the BMW team were given a one lap penalty because of taking a shortcut, which was necessary to make it back to the pits in time after the puncture.

However, with 42 minutes remaining, the Porsche came in for another fuel stop and soon after that came in with apparent suspension problems, losing more valuable time and dropping back to fourth.

At that time, the Land Motorsport Porsche found itself in the lead with Niclas Kentenich behind the wheel, but the young German was put under massive pressure by Claudia Hürtgen in the Al Faisal Racing BMW, who was lapping up to twelve seconds per lap faster than the Porsche. Eventually, Kentenich drove the victory home for the Land Motorsport Porsche team, finishing just 49.676 seconds ahead of the BMW. The Besaplast Racing Porsche finished third, although finishing driver Sebastian Asch had to overcome massive brake problems in his final stint.

New SP2 (Special) class was great success.

The newly introduced class for special cars with an engine of more then 4 litre and/or more then 6 cylinders was a huge success. 11 exciting cars entered in this new class, like Aston Martin Vantage V8, Ferrari 430, Ford Mustang FR500, Marcos Mantis, Audi R8, BMW V8, Holden Commodore, Porsche turbo and Mosler MT900 GT3. To balance the performance, there was set a minimal reference lap time of 2min09sec, to ensure the sportive competition, with the Porsches GT3 and the BMW´s in class A6 and A5. After one hour competition, two SP2 cars were in the top 5. Finally the Aston Martin from team DXB Racing Dubai won their class and achieved an overall 12^th position, with a fastest lap time of 2min14sec. It can be concluded that this class brought exciting cars to the race and it is expected to have even more cars in class SP2 for the next events.

New class for GT4-A cars

For 12H Hungary 2009 as well as for 24H Dubai 2010 there will be a new class added to the grid.The class GT4-A will give all owners of a GT4 car the opportunity to enter.The new class will be announced officially on short notice. Its very likely that the cars will be placed into this class based on a minimum reference lap time, like is being done for class SP2. By working with this minimum reference lap time also other cars with the same performance can be accepted in the class GT4-A.

Final Results 4th TOYO TIRES 24H Dubai 2009

from : www.24hdubai.com, via : gengler@creventic.com

Speedcar Series’ second season begins this weekend at the Dubai Autodrome with 14 cars on the grid. The Speedcars will be run by 7 teams from six countries across Europe, the Middle East and United States.Two of the current seven teams participated in Speedcar Series last season. They are Germany’s Phoenix Racing who also race in DTM, FIA GT and the Le Mans 24 hours and the Union Properties team from the UAE. Newer teams include a second UAE team Continental Circus, Italy’s Durango, which has a 28-year racing history in F3000 and GP2, HPR from the UK which receives technical support from AF Corse (three time FIA GT World Champion), JMB from Monaco and the American team Palm Beach Racing.

Claudio Berro, Operations Director of Speedcar Series said, “We are very pleased with the high level of teams that we have on board at the moment. Our focus this season is to attract professional teams and we are accomplishing that. We are still waiting for a final adjustment to the list of drivers from some of our teams. It will be finalised today and announced tomorrow. However, I can anticipate that our entry list includes seven F1 level drivers: Season 1 Champion Johnny Herbert, Jean Alesi, Heinz Harald Frentzen, Stefan Johansson, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Gianni Morbidelli and Jacques Villeneuve.”

The first round of Speedcar season 2 will take place at the Dubai Autodrome this weekend.

source : PitPass

While it’s getting cold and colder around the world, Aston Martin picked the right place to unveil its new evolution GT4. They’ve come to Dubai which in this time of year enjoys a pleasant mild weather, but the car they brought along is not as friendly! The GT4 is the replacement for the brutal N24 model, and it is more or less the same. But runs on the new 4.7 liter V8 . It comes with a six speed manual or a Sportshift transmission, a Valeo twin-plate cerametallic racing clutch and a lightweight flywheel. The Aston Martin Vantage GT4 weighs 1,330 kg which is 300 kg lighter than the standard car.

Aston takes orders for GT4 now at £96,645 but first one will be delivered in January next year.

Press Release :

Aston Martin Press Release:

Aston Martin Racing has released the 2009 specification Vantage GT4 based on Aston Martin’s new 4.7 liter V8 Vantage. The new Vantage GT4 builds on the success of its predecessor, the 4.3 liter Vantage N24.

The Vantage GT4 has been under development for six months and was unveiled in Dubai this week by Aston Martin chairman, David Richards, and tested extensively at the Dubai Autodrome.

The car is an evolution of the N24 with the larger capacity engine being more responsive with increased torque throughout the rev range. The suspension has been retuned to enhance the handling, including modified front uprights to give increased camber. The 2009 Vantage GT4 also has larger front brake discs with revised cooling.

“In the last two years, the N24 has proved to be one of the most successful cars in its class; winning the Nurburgring 24 Hours this year, as well as several FIA GT4 races,” said David Richards. “We have built on this success to develop the Vantage GT4, a competitive racing car for professional and semi-professional drivers, but also a forgiving car which will appeal to enthusiasts who wish to use it for track days and club racing.”

The Vantage GT4 is built to FIA GT4 regulations and is eligible to compete in the following series: FIA GT4 European Cup; British GT4 Championship; Britcar Endurance Series; German GT4 Championship; Dutch Supercar Challenge; Dutch GT4 Championship; VLN Endurance Championship at the Nurburgring;Australian Endurance Championship; the American SCCA Championship; and the Aston Martin Owners Club Race Series.

The Vantage GT4 comes with either a manual or sportshift transmission. It is priced from £96,645 and is available to order now with delivery in January 2009.

Aston Martin Racing is now the only manufacturer to produce cars in each of the GT classes: GT1, GT2, GT3 and GT4.

The Vantage GT4

The GT4 is based on the latest 4.7 liter V8 Vantage and is hand built by Aston Martin Racing The 4.7 liter eight cylinder engine has an engine management system recalibrated for race use. It also has a free flow exhaust system and air filters, and the standard V8 dry sump lubrication system is retained, helping to prevent oil surge during cornering.

The Vantage GT4 can be supplied with either a six speed manual, or a Sportshift transmission with paddle controls. Both versions have a Valeo twin-plate cerametallic racing clutch and lightweight flywheel to complete the powertrain specification.

At 1,330 kg the Vantage GT4 is 300 kg lighter than the standard car. This has been achieved through a range of weight reduction measures. The interior trim is removed with the exception of the facia moulding, which is re-trimmed in Alcantara, and the console and door casings are replaced by new lightweight mouldings.

The chassis has been fitted with a high-strength steel rollcage and Recaro competition seats. A suede-trimmed steering wheel with a quick release mechanism is also fitted as standard. The Vantage GT4’s safety features are completed with a Sabelt sixpoint safety harness with a push-button release and Lifeline Zero 360 gas extinguisher system.

The V8 Vantage road car’s suspension has required only minor adjustments for optimal track performance. These include larger diameter front and rear anti-roll bars and adjustable ride height aluminium dampers, as well as single rate, flat ground springs with separate helper springs. The front subframe is modified for extra camber and castor. Cast magnesium front and rear wheels are standard fit with high performance Yokohama A048-R tyres. The brakes are uprated with Pagid RS 29 race pads.

As further endorsement of the standard V8 Vantage underframe, the active safety systems are directly carried over to the Vantage GT4, including: dynamic stability control, traction control, ABS and electronic brakeforce distribution, providing reassurance and enhanced control in slippery conditions.