The Kessel Ferrari of WEC regular Davide Rigon, Giacomo Piccini and Michael Broniszewski has successfully defended its crown by winning the Gulf 12 Hours.

After taking the pole by a mere .1s, the trio repeated their 2015 success at the Yas Marina circuit.

The Nicolas Minassian, Matt Griffin, Rob Barff Dragon Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 was second.

Brit Stuart Hall led home the GP Extreme Renault RS 01 to third place alongside Nicky Pastorelli and Jordan Grogor.

Podium positions were unchanged from the halfway mark in the race which was split into two 6 Hour blocks.

Swiss team Kessel had double reason to celebrate after also taking the Gentlemans class with Belgium’s Jacques Duyver, and Italian pair David Perel and Marco Zanuttini.

French outfit Graff Racing took the Proto Class with the all-Australian crew of James Winslow, Greg Taylor and Neale Muston who finished seventh outright.

The Ligier LMP3 class machine was leading overall at one stage however the Prototype cars had four more stops than the GT3 runners in the final wash-up.

“We led the overall event at the 3-4 hour mark, however as LMP3 were penalised with four extra two minute 10 second pit stops (12 in total) against just 8 total for GT3 machines meaning it was impossible to continue leading,” Winslow told Speedcafe.com.

“We were up against tough opponents including the recent GP2 winner and Williams F1 test driver Alex Lynn.”

The United Autosports Ligier of father and son Shaun and Alex Lynn and Richard Meins was second in the Proto category, finishing 10th outright.

Former F1 driver Stefan Johansson was classified 14th outright in the second United Autosports Liger he shared with Nico Rondet, Jim McGuire and Matt Keegan.

The AF Corse-run Spirirt of Race Ferrari 488 of Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Andrea Rizzoli landed the Pro Am Class after finishing fourth outright, completing 300 laps, 3 adrift of the winning Ferrari.

In the first half of the race, Jim Michaelian (Lamborghini Huracan ST) damaged the barriers which saw the race mark time for just short of two hours.

Elsewhere, on the undercard Australian 15-year-old Oscar Piastri had mixed results in his UAE Formula 4 debut finishing the four-race format in sixth, fifth, fourth and eighth places.

“It’s a big weekend in terms of learning which is why we’re here and everyone at Dragon F4 has helped so much,” Piastri said.

“It’s been tough physically from what I’m used to in karting, but having so much track time across all the practice sessions and racing really means you can develop your set-up and develop your driving a lot more.”

Results: Gulf 12 Hour