Having the benefit of residing close by back in Dubai, 2024 Aston Martin Racing Drivers Academy winner Jamie Day was close at hand to lend that assistance as the young Englishman struck off another racing first for himself as he sets about confirming his 2025 (presumably GT3 based) programme and continued his own programme of events within the Creventic run series having raced an identical AMR Vantage GT3 at Dubai with the Comtoyou Racing team.

However, that driver change put paid to their collective qualifying efforts of Saturday to land them starting Sunday’s race from near last in the grid of fifty-two cars in fortieth position.

At the end of the first of a six-hour race, the #77 car was already up within the top twenty overall before falling back outside of that margin by the time the race had reached its halfway stage. That position remained about the same as the drivers continued to cycle through their available stint lengths before the car was eventually brought home in P21 overall, nineth within their new Pro-Am class but only four laps behind the overall winner.

That and their P6 result in class from Dubai has left the team third overall in class by the end of this mini–Middle East Trophy Series. The team will now redirect their thoughts and attentions to the next four races of the Asian Le Mans Series that will be ran at both Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina in February.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Having ran superbly well in their first ever 24-hour race with their #77 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo, the Earl Bamber Motorsport has made that comparatively short hop across the border to participate within this race with the same driver line up as the Dubai 24 except for the omission of team boss Earl Bamber himself.

That leaves bronze ranked driver Setiawan Santoso running alongside the Sathienthirakul brothers (Munkong and Tanart) as the team look for that critical car data ahead of their next visit to both Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina within the Asian Le Mans Series next month.

Unofficial track action will begin on Wednesday with the first of three track day sessions before three further test sessions on Friday before Free Practice and class Qualifying on Saturday before a green flag to the race at 10:30hrs (local) on Sunday.

Photo credits – 24H Series / Team / social media

Despite working upon the car overnight, the Belgian based team was eventually forced to retire the car just after the race had started and that sadly left Gutak, Dante Rappange, Nicholas Baert and Mex Jansen wondering about what might have been as they watched on with their #40 sister car.

That #40 Comtoyou Racing AMR of Jamie Day, Tom Van Rompuy, Matisse Lismont and Kobe Pauwels proved itself to be a class contender within their own GT3 Pr0-Am class during the opening half of the race before heavy contact from behind by the #710 Liepert Motorsport Lamborghini sent the #41 AMR destined for a too long a stop within its garage box for repairs to keep it anywhere in contention.

Eventually finishing eighteen laps down to the eventual winner, the #40 finished just outside of the top twenty in twenty - first position but that could easily have been so different had the car not been penalised so many times for track limits and/or speeding or overtaking whilst the race was under caution!! Despite of this, this was a great display from the young driver line up!

The best result however came from the #77 Earl Bamber Motorsport AMR Vantage GT3 team who, in their first 24-hour race eventually came home eighteenth overall and sixth within the GT3 Pro-Am class.

Despite running with a varied crew in terms of experience with two amateurs, one semi-Pro and one Pro driver, the Setiawan Santoso, Munkong and Tanart Sathienthirakul alongside Earl Bamber driven car went onto run a near flawless race to receive just one sixty second time penalty for overtaking during a caution period with no incidents to report on track!

Whilst we still await official confirmation from the Comtoyou Racing team about their 2025 campaigns, the EBM team will be back in 24H Series based racing next weekend at the 6hours of Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina before being back to the Asian Le Mans Series with the same car but another crew at these two very circuits in early February.

Photo credits – 24H Series / Teams / social media

Within the #40 Comtoyou entry we see another large Belgian contingent as Matisse Lismont remains with the team from his GT World Challenge Europe commitments earlier this season alongside that of WEC Corvette racer Tom Van Rompuy. They will be joined by British GT4 and European GT4 racer Jamie Day as he continues to step up from the GT4 class into GT3 ahead of a 2025 season.

Whilst the #41 Comtoyou sadly remains with a string of TBC’s aside its entry, that leaves the #77 EBM entry of Setiawan Santosa returning to the team after his GT World Challenge Asia commitments with them this season along two other Thai co-drivers.

Tanart Sathienthirakul is another proficient silver driver from the GT World Challenge Asia Series whilst Munkong Sathienthirakul comes from the TCR Asia ranks.

First track sessions of the Dubai 24 start on Monday 6th January with private testing before the 24 hour itself ran over the 11th and 12th January.

It now appears that it will be just the EBM AMR entry that now also runs within the 24H Series 6Hrs of Abu Dhabi the weekend after too.

Photo credits – Teams / social media / GTWCE / TSS