4 Hours of Abu Dhabi – United Autosports wins with Josh Pierson, 16 years and 5 days old

Josh Pierson got off his Oreca 07-Gibson 51 minutes from the end of the race. The young American had come to ride as much as possible in order to gain experience for the rest of his season, it is a mission more than accomplished. And his career in Endurance begins in apotheosis. Starting from pole position after Paul di Resta's time in the morning, the Portland native immediately distanced himself from his rivals, stringing together fast laps. Then, he showed a disarming maturity in managing both the traffic and his effort, not allowing himself to be destabilized by the red flag interrupting the smooth running of the event for half an hour halfway through the race, sequels of a fire on the No. 3 G-Drive LM P26, then driven by Viachelav Gutak, fortunately unscathed by this mishap. Until now pilot of karting then car, Josh Pierson had only completed one race in a prototype before the 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi: the 24 Hours of Daytona, contested at the end of January in LM P2 with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport. Then aged under 16, he had obtained an exemption to participate in the double round of the clock in Florida, which was refused to him for the 4 Hours of Dubai last weekend with a few days to go. The young man actually celebrated his 16th birthday on Monday February 14, between the two Asian meetings. Le Mans Series. Josh Pierson therefore waited one more week before starting with United Autosports. He did not wait any longer to achieve his first victory. At 16 years and 5 days old, it will be difficult to make a younger winner in Endurance…

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Beaten today, Nielsen Racing is nevertheless carrying out an excellent operation in the championship with a view to an invitation to the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the British team could add a second in this Asian Le Mans Series in LM P3. In this category, it finally smiled on the Duqueine M30-D08-Nissan of DKR Engineering and Rinaldi Racing. After the harness problems encountered in Dubai, the Luxembourg team led by Laurent Hörr, Mathieu de Barbuat and Sebastian Alvarez was able to complete its effort on the Yas Marina circuit. They thus beat Leonard Weiss, Torsten Kratz and Hendrik Still. The #27 CD Sport Ligier took third position in this class with Christophe Cresp, Antoine Doquin and Steven Palette.

Du côté des GT, une Porsche peut en cacher une autre, plus particulièrement chez Herberth Motorsport. Alors que la n°33 d’Antares Au, Yifei Ye et Klaus Bachler partait en deuxième position, c’est la n°91 du trio Alfred et Robert Renauer et Ralf Bohn qui s’est finalement imposée au terme d’une course une nouvelle fois serrée dans cette catégorie. Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy et Ben Barnicoat ont pris la deuxième place, devant l’équipage de l’AF Corse monégasque avec Louis Prette, Vincent Abril et Conrad Grunewald. En Pro-Am, Kessel Racing s’est imposé avec la n°57 pilotée par Roman Ziemian, Francesco Zollo et Axcil Jefferies. 

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