DW Racing and Andy Lowe fight doggedly to top five in Dubai

DW Racing’s Andy Lowe fought doggedly to turn underwhelming qualifying performances into a hard-earned top-five result in the penultimate round of the 2024-25 Gulf Radical Cup at Dubai Autodrome (7-8 March).

Much of DW Racing’s time and energy during the 2024-25 season has been focused on improving Lowe’s pace and consistency over a race distance, to great avail.

The British driver’s raw speed over a single lap has also ramped up along with his own expectations, so he was overtly disappointed after placing the #4 Radical SR3 XXR ninth on the Sprint Race 1 grid with a 1m41.129s that was some 1.2s off pole position, before locking in a relatively lowly 12th-place start for the Enduro.

DW Racing was able to help Lowe understand what is required from him in qualifying trim and those lessons will be carried forward to the final instalment of the season in Dubai (4-6 April), but his starting positions for Round 6 were locked in and he knew he faced an uphill battle to achieve truly representative race results.

Frustratingly, ground was lost away from the start of Sprint Race 1, although Lowe quickly made amends by pushing forward into the top six, where he felt he should have qualified.

In Sprint Race 2, tenth-placed Lowe was forced to brake to avoid rear-ending the #15 TT Racing SR3 XXR of Amir Feyzulin off the start line, and he subsequently emerged from the first corner at the very back of the 16-strong field.

The Wolverhampton-domiciled racer went on to execute textbook overtakes at Turns 1 and 5 in a dogged recovery to seventh, and while a pass on the #69 GSR of Peri Deramas included contact, the move was ultimately deemed fair by the stewards.

Only the 40-minute Enduro remained and, from an underwhelming P12, Lowe made up six places despite taking on left-side damage in an action-packed start.

The race was eventually red-flagged and, to Lowe’s dismay, drivers were re-placed in their original grid slots, although the stoppage did allow DW Racing to conduct running repairs to the #4 car’s broken body panels.

Unfortunately, a Safety Car restart limited Lowe’s opportunities to progress early on, so he instead focused on gapping his pursuers to negate the ten-second success penalty that came with the breakthrough podium he and DW Racing achieved last time out at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit.

Lowe’s efforts paid dividends and, after staving off Alim Geshev for two laps, he eventually joined TT Racing’s Johnny Khazzoum and Amir Feyzulin in a three-way fight for a spot on the winners’ rostrum.

The battle raged on to the very end of the 40-minute contest and there was nothing to choose between the trio, who swept through the penultimate corner as one, all somehow emerging unscathed with Lowe still in a hard-earned fifth.

“Overall, it has been a very eventful and rewarding weekend of racing in the Gulf Radical Cup,” said Lowe. “I was disappointed with my qualifying positions, as I had much higher expectations. DW Racing and I have been working on my consistency, rather than outright single-lap pace, although my deficit has reduced dramatically since the start of the 2024-25 season and I am starting to understand what I need to do.

“I started Sprint Race 1 in ninth and finished sixth, making progress after losing places at the start to establish myself inside the top six, which makes me wonder what could have been possible if I had qualified better. The start of Sprint Race 2 was possibly my worst ever, as I misjudged Amir (Feyzulin) ahead of me and had to brake to avoid running into him, dropping me to last before Turn 1. I was pleased with my overtakes and, while there was contact with Peri (Deramas), the stewards took no further action and we sorted it amicably between us.”

Lowe continued: “I started the Enduro Race well and gained six positions, so I was gutted when the grid was reset by the red flag and we restarted behind the Safety Car. Still, I got my head down, negated my ten-second success penalty and finished fifth after a tense battle with Johnny (Khazzoum) and Amir. The penultimate corner was scary because we were three-wide, somehow squeezing onto a racing line that’s barely broad enough for one car. I’m not sure how we all survived! It was an exciting ending and I’m already looking forward to Round 7 – the final part of a really enjoyable and fruitful season in the United Arab Emirates. I’m gaining momentum and growing in confidence, and I have high expectations for my UK and NTT INDYCAR SERIES-supporting North American programmes.”