Griffin back in Dubai for Hankook 24hr – Motorsport.ie
GT driver, Matt Griffin returns to Dubai for the 7th consecutive year this week for the ever popular Hankook 24hr of Dubai race, his first race of the New Year after a three week break.
Griffin will rejoin the UAE based Dragon Racing Team for the third time in his career, driving the number 888 Ferrari 458 GT3 in the A6-AM class alongside teammates John Hartshorne, Alex Kapadia and Kahled Al Mudhaf. Matt, together with teammates Rob Barf, Jordan Groger and Mohammed Jawa, won the Pro-AM class and finished 3rdoverall with the team in 2015 and so is feeling positive for a good outcome to this weekend’s race.
“The Dubai 24hr is one of my favourite races and it’s great to be back with Dragon Racing. I will have different teammates this year in Alex, John and Kahled and we have a very capable team. Dragon Racing team know this race very well and have had a huge amount of success, including winning the pro-am class for the last 2 years, so this gives me huge confidence going into what will be a really tough race.” Griffin explained.
With over 100 cars on the grid this year, this is not a race for the faint hearted but the likable Irishman has just the right amount of expertise and plenty of experience to cope with the demands that a race like this puts on a driver.
The Cork based driver had a busy 2015 competing in a total of 31 races throughout the year and is heading in 2016 refreshed and focused after spending a lot of the Christmas break eating healthy and building on his fitness ready for the New Year.
“There is not really a racing season any more as there are races somewhere in the world 12 months of the year. 2015 was very busy for me and I have only had a few weeks off since my final race of 2015 so I still feel very race fit. I think this is a huge advantage especially given the level of competitiveness of this race.”
The weekend kicks off with free practice on Wednesday 13th January 2016. Qualifying will take place at 5pm (local time) on Thursday 14th January 2016 with the main 24 hour race event starting at 2pm (local time) on Friday 15th January 2016.
Motors TV will have live coverage of both qualifying and race with qualifying starting at1pm on Thursday and live coverage of the race staring at 10.30am on Friday.
Additional race information can be found at www.24hseries.com.
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