MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. Russia’s domestically-made Rossa race car was faster than Lamborghini and other teams at the 2025 Dubai 24 Hour international race held earlier this month, losing only due to mechanical reasons, Russian auto racer Nikita Mazepin told TASS on Friday.
The 2025 Dubai 24 Hour motorsport endurance race was held on January 10-12. Mazepin was part of a team of four alternating drivers taking the wheel of Russia’s newest race car. The team had to pit in the opening hours of the race due to mechanical problems with the car. By the time the issue was fixed, they were so far behind that they couldn’t catch up to the other teams.
"We failed to accomplish our end goal, however we proved once again that we are on the right track, coming back to the world racing arena. It’s no cakewalk there, and what happened cannot be called a surprise," Mazepin said in an interview with TASS.
"Arriving at a 24-hour race without tests and expecting to beat teams that had prepared more thoroughly was overly optimistic," the Russian racer noted.
"However, one positive thing is that we won the qualification session in our class, which proved that the car is competitive," Mazepin continued. "The car turned out to be the fastest there, even faster than Lamborghini and the rest of the teams."
"Unfortunately, it’s not all about speed in such races and the car wasn’t strong enough owing to a mistake in the car’s construction involving its oil supply system. That’s what caused our problems early on," he said.
"Unfortunately, once we managed to deal with the [mechanical] problems, it was too late in the race for us to do anything," Mazepin added.
Mazepin, 25, is a Russian auto racer and motorsport executive, and previously drove in the Formula 1 series.