This weekend at the Dubai Autodrome more than 42 teams with 54 cars and 226 drivers will take part in the 24 Hours of Dubai. One of these drivers will be very familiar to motorbike fans, this is of course MotoGP Legend, Valentino Rossi.
The Hankook 24 Hours of Dubai is taking place today (the 14th of January) and is set to start at 11am in the UK. The 24 Hours of Dubai will also be streamed live on the 24H Series YouTube channel for fans to check out and keep track of the race. (Qualifying took place yesterday, 13 January 2023, the video can be watched below.)
Since retiring from MotoGP Rossi has switched from two wheels to four, where he joined the Monster VR46 with Team WRT for the 2022 season of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe.
This Championship saw Rossi thrown into the deep end in GT3 racing, which saw the motorcycling icon tackle circuits like Imola, Brands Hatch, Zandvoort, Misano and Spa in an Audi R8 LMS Evo II.
After competing in an Audi last year Rossi has since made the switch to BMW for the 2023 season. As well as switching to BMW machinery Rossi has also been signed as a factory BMW driver for their 2023 season, but he will remain with Team WRT. For the 2023 season Rossi will be racing behind the wheel of a BMW M4 GT3 car.
This weekends outing in Dubai will be Rossi’s first race for BMW and his first drive as a factory BMW driver in his car racing career. This is also not Rossi’s first attempt at a 24-hour race event either. In 2022 Rossi took part in the 24 Hours of Spa, where Rossi, Frederic Vervisch and Nico Müller finished 17th overall out of 66 entries in their Team WRT Audi.
For this weekend Rossi will not be partnered by Vervisch or Müller, but instead four different drivers. Rossi’s teammates in car number 46 will be: Timothy Whale, Sean Gelael, Max Hesse and Maxime Martin. The race is set to start at 11am in the UK on Saturday the 14th of January.
The livestream for the 24H Dubai race, which starts at 11:00 UK time, can be found below.
