24-HOUR DUBAI RACE CANCELLED DUE TO EXTREME WEATHER

DUBAI (Jan. 13, 2020) – This past weekend, ST Racing travelled to the Middle East to participate in the 15th edition of the Hankook 24H season opener at the Dubai Autodrome. And the most unlikely thing happened.

After just slightly over 7 hours of racing, the officials had no choice but to red flag the race because of dangerous driving conditions from too much water accumulation on track. Dubai had received 5 inches of rain in that short time. The cars were no longer racing, they were aquaplaning.

Official photo from Creventic 24HR SERIES

At 10:17 PM on Friday night, the 65-car field lined up on the front straight under “parc fermé” rules and waited for the race to resume. Nine hours later, after multiple unsuccessful efforts to drain the track, the race was cancelled. “Safety first” reported the officials.

However, the weekend did start off on a high note for ST Racing. All four drivers, Samantha Tan, John Boyd, Jon Miller and Nick Wittmer hit the ground running, and although the track was new to all of them, they put in some good lap times and improved with every practice session.

During Thursday’s qualifying, Nick Wittmer, who comes from a family of very talented racers, showed just how fast he was when he set a new GT4 track record clocking the fastest lap and getting pole position in class. The whole team was pumped and ready to go racing.

On Friday, the green flag flew at 3:00 PM local time, under very menacing skies with heavy rain in the forecast for the next 2 days.

Samantha Tan started the race as the team thought it would be best to give her and John Boyd the daylight hours. Both of them drove solidly despite having some light rain starting to fall on the track making it increasingly greasy. As the race progressed, heavy rains started coming down causing difficult track conditions.

When ST Racing’s third driver Nick Wittmer went out on track, despite the difficult conditions, he managed to gain ground and put the team in 3rd place. When Jon Miller went out for his stint, he started losing grip on the rear wet tires while having very poor visibility and huge puddles on track making driving more and more hazardous.

By the time Miller handed the car over to Samantha Tan, it was 9:00 PM, and the track conditions had gone from bad to worse. At that point, the race became all about surviving and staying out of trouble. Tan did her best to stay on track for the next hour as multiple cars spun out causing race control to yellow flag the session. She came in to refuel during the Code 60 and lost a few positions. A few laps later, the officials decided to stop the race.

After all the cars parked on the front straight to observe the red flag, the drivers tried to find a dry spot wherever they could, to get some sleep while waiting to hear from the Creventic officials about the re-start of the race. The rain kept coming down during the early hours on Saturday while large tanker trucks were deployed to pump and take out the accumulating water. It was a losing battle and so at 7AM the following morning, the officials cancelled the race.

ST Racing walked away very disappointed and frustrated with a 7th place finish knowing they could have finished on podium if the weather had collaborated a little bit more.

Dubai apparently never gets more than 1.5 inches of rain per year. Cancelling a race in the middle of the desert due to heavy rain is just unheard of, but this time, it was necessary. Perhaps Mother Nature was trying to remind everyone that climate change does exist. Or maybe the full moon decided to play havoc with this exciting event. One thing is sure, this was an experience the teams and drivers will never forget.

Here’s what the drivers had to say:

Samantha Tan: “This was my first time in Dubai and first time racing overseas. The track was relatively easy for me to learn as I had Jon Miller coaching me and doing data after each session. I was improving with every practice session even though they were short, as we had to split them between 4 drivers. The team worked very hard and gave us an amazing car. Nick Wittmer was awesome during qualifying, he got pole and set a new GT4 track record.”

“I started the race the next day, as the team thought it would be best to give the daylight hours to John Boyd and I. I had a pretty good stint. I ran my fastest times of the weekend during the second half of my stint and did my best to stay close to the other GT4 cars without being overly aggressive. There were around 70 cars participating, and I had to deal with a lot more GT car traffic than what I was used to. I hopped back in the car around 9:00 PM to gain some very valuable experience racing at night and in the rain. I have very limited experience in either of those conditions, so it was a bit nerve-wracking but I did my best. However, as my stint went on, it started raining harder and harder until there were huge puddles on track and a lot of cars were just spinning out everywhere. You could barely see anything, as the lights from other cars and buildings were just reflecting off the wet pavement. Some corners were just straight up underwater. Due to these conditions, they red-flagged the race around 10:00 PM and ended up canceling it the next morning.”

“Although it was disappointing to end on a red flag” added Tan, “everyone tried their best. I think we showed that we were very competitive and had a good chance for a podium finish. I can’t thank my team enough for all their hard work. And kudos to the 24H Creventic Series officials for keeping us safe.”

Nick Wittmer: “This weekend, I was a driver for ST Racing and I was also a crew member. I did both. I helped set up the car with the crew and we got it ready for qualifying. I had only done 12 laps in practice to learn the track, so that I could give the other drivers a chance to do more laps to learn the track. Then, as I was chosen to be the one to qualify, I went out and did my fast lap on the second lap. When I saw 2:08.8 on my dash, I knew no one had a chance to beat that. So, I just parked the car after 3 laps and watched the rest of qualifying in the pits. And no one was able to beat it. As it turns out, that lap time is now also a new lap record for GT4 24H here at the Dubai Autodrome.”

“Then we started the race. When I got in the car, we were four laps down (from P1), so I had to catch up. In my 1h50-min stint (dry and rain), I managed to regain 3 laps in the GT4 class before I gave the car to Jon Miller. And, he gained one more lap to get us on the lead lap. Then Sam took over and went out in the worst track conditions, and fell to 6th before the yellow flag but then she went in for fuel and dropped further down to 7th. Then, the red flag came out. This isn’t the way we wanted to finish but it would have been impossible to continue with all that water on track. Driving with ST Racing again was an absolute pleasure. This is a great team.”

“The next day, when the race was cancelled” added Wittmer, “I got back in my crew clothes and started packing up the container and getting it ready to ship out.”

Jon Miller: “In practice, we were always near the top of the sheet without ever doing a run on new tires, until Nick Wittmer put us on Pole for the race, against six very accomplished European BMW GT4 teams. Samantha also performed extremely well, including jumping in the car in the most difficult conditions: at night during the heaviest rain. She threw herself in the deep end, literally, and her experience in that final stint before the red flag will absolutely pay dividends when those conditions happen in the future.”
“My stint was the one just before Sam’s final stint, so I was also driving at night and in the rain. I took over for Nick Wittmer and there was a dry line, so I went out on slicks at first. Soon the rain came again, not hard at first, so I stayed out as long as possible. Eventually I had to pit for rain tires. That worked for a little while and I was having an intense and fun race with one of the other GT4 BMWs, both of us sliding around looking for grip, passing and repassing each other. It felt like a sprint race!”
“Eventually, it started raining even harder and it was clear that my older rain tires were shot. I had no rear grip anywhere, keeping the bigger picture in mind it became more about risk management than scrapping for position that early in the race.”

Miller added “Getting to travel halfway across the world to race in Dubai with ST Racing was a really special experience! We have big ambitions and this is only the beginning of the next step. It was so frustrating to have the race stopped after only 7 hours, but we have some extremely positive takeaways from an ungratifying situation caused by freak weather: a monsoon in the desert!

Comment from Team Principal Kenneth Tan: “We had a plan for 24 hours, and had we been given the chance to execute our strategy, I am very confident we would have had a podium finish. The car was set up perfectly and the drivers all said that it felt very good during their first stints in the early hours of the race.”

“My biggest disappointment is seeing how down the team was, given our bright prospects, and the frustration of not being able to execute a great plan and strategy having only run 7 out of the 24 hours.”

“As Team Principal though, I am very proud of our crew. We can stand up against the best and be very competitive. We have never raced in Europe/Middle East before. Most of the teams were from Europe, so it was good to see that we are up there and are totally competitive against the best in Europe. We will have our next chance to execute our strategy again in Barcelona this coming September 4 – 6, 2020.”

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The next race for ST Racing is scheduled on February 7-8-9 in the SRO Winter Invitational at Thermal Club in Palm Springs where Samantha will race in GT4 Sprint followed by the first regular season race in the SRO Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Championship on March 6-7-8 at the Circuit of the Americas.

Samantha Tan’s race fans can follow her on samanthatanracing.com, Instagram (@samanthatanracing) @(samanthaatan), Facebook (STRSamantha) and on Twitter (@STR_Samantha).

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About ST Racing:

ST Racing was officially launched in October 2016.

A Team of highly experienced guys were put together for the Pirelli GT4 America West 2019 season. ST Racing co-drivers, Samantha Tan and Jason Wolfe drove the #38 BMW M4 GT4 class while ST Racing Jon Miller and Harry Gottsacker drove the #28 BMW M4 GT4.

ST Racing clinched the Top 2 spots in the 2019 Pirelli GT4 America West Championship, with Miller and Gottsacker finishing 1st in the Championship, with Tan and Wolfe in 2nd place.

Kenneth Tan is the Team Principal, Ben Distaulo the team manager, Alex Dupré, team engineer. Nic Jonnson is Samantha Tan’s coach.

Anne Roy | Cell: 514 627-0191 | anne@st-racing.org | www.samanthatanracing.com