• First event of 2022 season for George Kurtz, CrowdStrike Racing
• Key growth opportunity for CrowdStrike in Middle East
• Kurtz returns to seat of SPS Mercedes-AMG GT3
• Gerhard Watzinger to race with Leipert Motorsport

AUSTIN, TEXAS (Jan 11, 2022) – George Kurtz’s whirlwind start to the 2022 racing season gets under way with  the 24 Hours of Dubai, which marks the first event of the 2022 CREVENTIC 24H Series Powered by Hankook.

Kurtz will pilot the No. 20 SPS automotive Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the twice-around-the-clock endurance race at the 3.35-mile/5.39-kilometer Dubai Autodrome from Jan 13-15. He is set to team with Valentin Pierburg, Ian Loggie and Reema Juffali in the GT3-Am category. The race will be Kurtz’s second in the 24H Series, his first having been in 2019 in Texas. 

The Dubai 24 is a unique opportunity for Kurtz and CrowdStrike, of which Kurtz is co-founder and chief executive officer. CrowdStrike – a leader in cloud-delivered protection of endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data – has redefined security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform that protects and enables the people, processes and technologies that drive modern enterprise. The Middle East is a key market for CrowdStrike, which will use this opportunity to showcase the brand.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for me personally as well for the CrowdStrike brand,” Kurtz said. “We expect Dubai to be a challenging and great event. It takes an aligned team to win an event of this stature, which is very similar to the philosophy we implement at CrowdStrike. I’m looking forward to what this event brings from a competitive and business perspective.”

The CrowdStrike Falcon will adorn the No. 20 SPS Mercedes-AMG. Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud, the Falcon Platform provides unprecedented levels of security to automatically stop data breaches and attacks like ransomware by protecting the most critical areas of risk: endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data.

Also racing in Dubai is Gerhard Watzinger, chairman of CrowdStrike’s board of directors, in the GTX class. He, along with Gregg Gorski, Erik Davis, Alban Varutti, and Fidel Leib will compete in the No. 710 Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo with Leipert Motorsport. With Leipert, Watzinger earned class victories at the 2021 12 Hours of Sebring and the 6h Abu Dhabi endurance races

The Dubai 24 Hours marks the first of three consecutive weekends of endurance racing for Kurtz and CrowdStrike. A week after Dubai, Kurtz will participate in the IMSA Roar Before the 24 test weekend, which includes a three-hour race for the IMSA Prototype Challenge on Jan. 22. Following that,  Kurtz will return to CORE autosport for the famous Rolex 24 At Daytona for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Dubai marks Kurtz’s return to SPS automotive following consecutive appearances with the team at the Spa 24 Hours. Both times he drove with Pierburg, who won the 2018 Dubai 24. Loggie won the 2021 British GT Championship in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 is the reigning Pro-Am champion in British GT.

Kurtz and the SPS Mercedes-AMG GT3 entry will have added focus with Juffali as part of the lineup. She is the first Saudi female to hold a professional racing license and also served as official ambassador for the Formula One World Championship’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in December.

The 24 Hours of Dubai begins Jan. 13 with free practice and qualifying. The race begins Friday,  Jan. 14 at 3 p.m. Gulf Standard Time / 5 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit 24hseries.com.

SPS automotive performance was founded in February 2003. In the meantime SPS has built up a strong team, which has a wealth of racing and super sport vehicle experience. SPS offers many tools as experts specialized in racing and street racing vehicles. SPS automotive has competed in championships such as Intercontinental GT Challenge, International GT Open, GT World Challenge Europe and the Hankook 24H Series.