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BTCC stars provide highs and lows at the Dubai 24hrs 2015

By MJP Media | 13 January 2015

The 10th running of the Dubai 24 hours provided an opportunity for stars of the BTCC past and present to showcase their talents in the globally talented field.

Tom Onslow-Cole in his 2013 Airwaves BTCC race car

The annual race sees a star studded field of drivers and cars in various classes headed by the A6 Pro class GT3 cars from Mercedes, Aston Martin, Porsche and Ferrari.

In that top group, the British interest was former BTCC legend Tom Onslow-Cole who guided the Ram Racing Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 to second place overall ahead of the KPM Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in third which included another former BTCC contender, Jonny Adam, as one of the team drivers. Onslow-Cole's Mercedes completed 60 laps of the Dubai circuit, 4 laps behind the overall winners, with Adam's car again a further 4 laps behind.

Speedworks Motorsport's Tony Hughes

The SP3 (GT4) cars saw a fantastic result for the BTCC's Speedworks Motorsport team who ran a Ginetta G50 and an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 taking second and third in class. The Ginetta came in second in the capable hands of Tony Hughes and Ollie Jackson, whilst the Aston Martin featured the larger than life and true BTCC hero, Paul O'Neill.

Elsewhere, Dan Welch suffered a collapsed lung and broken ribs following a huge crash while competing in the Dubai 24 Hour event. Welch, who drives a Proton Gen-2 for his family-run team in the British Touring Car Championship, was behind the wheel of a Porsche 991 in the closing stages of qualifying for the traditional season opening race when a Ferrari 458 lost control heading in to the hairpin, sending Welch to hospital and leaving the Porsche unrepairable.

Dan Welch at the wheel of his 2014 BTCC Proton Gen-2

The driver of the Ferrari, former World Touring Car Championship contender Isaac Tutumlu, posted an on-board view of the incident to his Instagram page, blaming the marshals for failing to deal with oil on the circuit, causing the incident. "I had a big crash on my fastest lap due to some oil or cooling fluid on the track that was not signalled by the marshals even though they admitted to have seen something on the track." said Tutumlu, alongside the video which clearly shows a lack of diminished adhesion flags. "Sadly, for their irresponsible and lousy work the car is finished and we cannot race."

Meanwhile, Welch, who was originally thought to have escaped with bruising and suspected cracked bones, was taken to A&E last night where a CT scan revealed he had suffered a collapsed lung along with broken ribs. "It's such a huge amount of work and effort to get there and then such a disappointment for the other drivers not to get to race." Welch told TouringCarTimes. "Jake, Simon and David were doing an awesome job and our race consistency looked really good compared to other cars in our class. With a massive amount of damage done to the car and myself it's going to take a good few weeks to recover!"

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media