How Coollink Boss, Nouri, Dazzled At Dubai Car Racing

The 11th edition of the Dubai 24 hour Car Racing, which took place on January 15 2016, will ever remain green in the memory of all the participants, particularly Swiss-born Nigeria based racer, Shahin Nouri, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Coollink, a member of Steam Broadcasting and Communication Limited.

It was the first time Nigeria was represented at the endurance race in Dubai and Nouri, who is fondly called Fineboy by his fans, was among four contestants gunning for the top position.

Everything going well for ‘Fineboy’ in the contest after 18 hours of flawless racing, but just when he was about to catch up with the third contender, something dramatic happened.

“It was a great experience to be part of the Dubai Car Racing,” Nouri told The Guardian during the week. “The team did a great job in preparing the car, our race pace was pretty good as we were about to fight for the class podium. Unfortunately, another bad driver took us out of the race. With so many cars on track, it was a difficult race, probably the most difficult
I have ever driven. It was very exciting and I am sure that without this unfortunate crash, we would have finished brilliantly this 24h endurance race,” Nouri said.

The Swiss born Nouri raced against three other drivers, Mikhail Spiridonov from Russia, JC Perrin of Canada and Frank Leone-Provot of France in the contest, and the Leipert Motorsport Team running the Lamborghini Huracan, was set looking forward to victory in the A6-AM class.

During the qualifying session, the team and drivers had decided not to go below a lap time of 2:05 to be able to refuel 120 liters per stop instead of 100 liters.

Spiridonov then set a lap time of 2.05.85. In an attempt to go closer to the 2:05 mark and make up a few places on the starting grid, the team manager, Ingo Leipert, sent the No. 12 out again.

Unfortunately, Mikhail set a lap time below 2:05, so the team had to be restricted to refueling pit stops of 100 liters, which meant more pit stops.

At the start of the race, most the drivers drove very well and the Lamborghini team was running smoothly and flawlessly. Because of many full course yellow flags with virtual safety cars limiting the speed on track at 60km/h, one of which lasted one hour to extricate a wound driver from a collision, the No 12 car couldn’t come as fast forward as the team had hoped for. Indeed, their fastest driver, Nouri, could not gain so much position as he was unluckily, then one limited by most virtual safety cars.

After 17 hour of exciting racing through heavy traffic, the car was occupying the 21st overall position and the 4th position in the A6-AM class. The race pace of all four drivers was constantly improving, beating each other’s fastest lap.

The Lamborghini was catching up rapidly the 3rd in class, lapping five second faster than them. The podium was on site. All mechanics and crew members were super excited and very much committed with very fast tires and breaks changes.

At 7h19am on Saturday morning the incident happened! The No 12 Lamborghini, with Spiridonov at the wheel was pushed out of the track into the wall by the No 191 BMW, driven by Christopher Wishart.

The Huracan crashed straight into the wall, spinned and hit with the back of the car into the wall again and caught fire. Luckily, Mikhail came out of this terrible crash uninjured with just a bruised right leg.

After recovering, the damaged Lamborghini Huracan, Ingo Leipert, the team manager, went straight for a meeting with the race director at the race control. After looking at the video of the incident, it was clear that the BMW driver took out the Lamborghini intentionally, while being overtaken.

The driver at fault did not appear before the race director despite being called several times. The race director initiated disciplinary procedures against the driver at fault.

Unfortunately, this incident ended abruptly the team’s podium hopes and the 24h race with the inability to repair the wrecked Lamborghini.

The sad incident in Dubai not withstanding, Leipert Motorsport was able to sign up ‘Fineboy’ Nouri after the race to compete for them throughout 2016 season for the European Lamborghini Super Trofeo. The next race will be in Italy from April 23-24.

Nouri said: “I am delighted to be given to chance to race for Leipert Motorsport for the Lamborghini Super Trofeo this season. I would also like to thank WazobiaTV and coollink.ng for their support. I thank them because Nigerians will be able to watch live the Lamborghini Super Trofeo on WazobiaTV. I will race for Nigerians and promote Nigeria’s core values and brands during this unique international motorsport championship,” Nouri stated.