He’d barely set foot out of the cockpit after his team had claimed victory, but Michael Broniszewski is already setting his sights on a hat-trick of Gulf 12 Hours titles next year.
Pole Broniszewski and his Kessel Racing team claimed back to back titles at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit Saturday night, steering to a comfortable win ahead of UAE-backed duo Dragon Racing in second and GP Extreme in third.
Kessel dominated proceedings right from the start in the capital Saturday morning, with Giacomo Piccini leading the No11 Ferrari 488 GT3 car across the finish line just before midnight after an exhausting 303 laps of racing.
Piccini and Kessel finished 1minute 19.570seconds ahead of Dragon’s Matt Griffin.
“It’s been an amazing season, I won everything and now ended it with a win here,” said Broniszewski.
“We always want to come here and win. It’s twice now so it would be special to make it three of course, but it’s such a high level. We hope we will be back on the podium and win again. Abu Dhabi is a special place for me.”
The amateur driver praised more illustrious colleagues Davide Rigon and Piccini, although he felt his stint in the car in the middle part of the race was the key.
Well done @PicciniGiacomo, Michael Broniszewski, @rigondavide @kessel_ch for a great win at the @gulf12hours starting from the pole! pic.twitter.com/fjE5byKXCO
— Andrea Piccini (@AndreaPiccini78) December 17, 2016
“I think [Dragon] expected to recover some time because I would be slower and being an amateur, but we gained another 20 seconds,” he said. “They were strong and I don’t think they made any mistakes either, I think we were just stronger. We controlled the last two hours, we didn’t even push because the gap was so big.
“Luck helped us a little bit as we had no technical problems, made no mistakes or didn’t collide with anyone. We were lucky from the beginning so there was no stress. We were strong enough to keep our position and we were never really under pressure.”
The race was held in two six-hour stints, with Kessel dominating the second part of the around-the-clock enduro, leading for 160 of the 161 laps. Dragon only led on lap 241, when the Kessel car made a pit stop.
Far from being disappointed with a runners-up finish, Dragon driver Rob Barff said the team was “over the moon” having pushed Kessel so close.
“The car’s brand new, Kessel have had their car all year and ran it successfully in Europe. To compete with them and finish on the same lap is pretty impressive,” said the Englishman.
“Twelve hours is an awfully long time. We had a good run, no problems, no mistakes, which is very rare. It was just a case of they had the pace on us.”
Kessel’s victory marked the fifth win for Ferrari in six editions of the Gulf 12 Hours.
