Racing at their home track of Fuji Speedway sees the #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg return to the track together after another eventful opening round to the season at Okayama just three weeks ago where the pair failed to capitalise upon a P2 in class qualifying position to eventually finish P24 within GT300 after that event.

The entry list confirms the #21 Comtoyou Racing silver entry for drivers Jamie Day and Kobe Pauwels as well as the #35 Pro entry from the Walkenhorst Motorsport team for their driver Henrique Chaves and Mateo Villagomez. Whilst the #35 entry has remained static from its time of announcement earlier this year, the Belgian teams entries have been changed since Matisse Lismont departed the team in favour of a Corvette entry just before the start of the Endurance series with his space now taken up by an endurance/sprint entered Day, but with the total removal of their planned #210 entry.

That should have been for their new Brazilian pairing of Ricardo Baptista and Raphael Suzuki as they did within one round of the GT3 Winter Series earlier this year but with just Pro, silver and gold classes being competed at this weekend – that might explain way.

Whilst the abilities of Chaves are well documented, the reigning FFSA GT4 Silver Champion Villagomez is still at the start of his GT3 learning curve although this will not be his debut GT3 event having raced at the Bathurst 12hr and also double stinting within the Endurance Cup rounds with Walkenhorst.

Saturday will see the field to the track for Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying and Qualifying before race 1 at 11:00hrs local with race 2 soon after at 15:45hrs local.

Photo credits – Teams / social media / Daniel Burgin

The crew were eager to improve upon the misfortunes of the opening round from Motegi were a Qualifying session crash saw the team placed onto the back foot to repair the car in time for the race only to see the multi-tonal Aston Martin recover to fourth in class at the end.

This time around, things were better as the #777 crew qualified upon the front row in P2 for Sundays race and were able to claim a podium P3 result at the end.

Next up for the team will be the second test at their home circuit Fuji Speedway at the beginning of next month in preparation to the 24hour event at the circuit at the beginning of June.

Leaving the best till last, last weekend we also saw the British GT Championship again run their second round Blue Ribband event from the home of British motor racing at Silverstone with their customary three-hour battle around the full Grand Prix circuit.

Just three weeks since the opening round of the season from Donington Park, we also saw the Blackthorn AMR, Beechdean AMR and MKLH Racing Aston Martins joined by a fourth car as an invitational entry for this round which helped swell the grid from that of the season opener.

Both the #97 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Tom Wood and the #50 MKH Racing Vantage GT4 of Peter Montague and Stuart Hall enjoyed class success last time out with a Silver-Am win for the #97 and a P2 in Endurance Cup Pro-Am for the MKH racers. The #7 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 of Giacoma Petrobelli and Jonny Adam however, endured self-inflicted hardship last time out after heavy front-end contact for the Italian cost their opening bout in damage and drive through penalties to end their day with a lowly P9 Pro-Am class finish.

Fortunate enough to say that all full season entries were on point during Qualifying, making full use of the earlier Media Day track running with the new Pirelli control tyre to place themselves no worse than third in class for the start of Sundays race. The additional #19 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 entry of Claude Bovet and Charlie Bateman completing their qualifying run with an aggregated P6 in class result.

With air and track temperatures now much warming than before, the race go underway under mainly clear blue skies and sunshine but the busyness of the track and the slight performance margins between all crews meant that contact was inevitable at some point.

Indeed, Howard was one of the first drivers to suffer the consequence of that as he was given an additional ten seconds at his next stop for causing a collision but at least at that stage, there was still time to make amends. Fortunately, Petrobelli was also more conservative with his passing manoeuvres this time about as the crews cycled through their pit stop/driver sequences within their maximum drive time allowances.

At the end, both the #97 and #50 AMR’s continued their podium run in class with a P2 finish to impress their new sponsors this time around for the #97 car with the #50 also finish one step down the ladder this time in P3. It was also a better day for the two Blackthorn AMR’s as the #7 crew finally got some significant championship points under their belts with a P4 Pro-Am finish with the guesting #19 car also finishing P3 in class too (although a non-points scoring entry).

Next up are the first of the sprint rounds with Oulton Park stepping up first for their two, hour long races at the end of May where we also expect the MKH Racing crew step aside leaving just the #7 and #97 Vantage GT3’s to cheer.

Photo credits – Team / Jacob Ebrey / social media

Trailing the pathways already set by the GT4 based series running within Germany earlier in the days saw three crews return class podium finishes at the end of their one three-hour round on Saturday. The new to AMR JMF Motorsport team continued their fine start to the relationship (as initiated at the opening round from Sonoma earlier in the month) with a P2 finish for the #4 car of Mike David Ortmann and Braydon Arthur.

Their silver class finish was closely followed by the #26 Heart of Racing AMR of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir who secured their first silverware of the new year as did the #15 Archangel pairing of Adrian Comstock and Thomas Merrill who converted a lowly P25 qualifying position into a P3 overall / P2 in Pro-Am finish for their efforts.

Those performances were mirrored within the GT America Series as the sole AMR running #39 Van Der Steur car of Max Hewitt continued from where he left off at Sonoma with a pair of visits to the podium for his P2 finish in race 1 and up one step to claim a class win by the end of the second forty-minute race of the weekend.

Finishing off with the Heart of Racing and Racers Edge AMR Vantage GT3’s competing within the GT World Challenge America Series saw distinct progress made from the two crews since their opening round in California. 

Inter team honours again went to the #24 HoRT entry of Gray Newell and Darren Turner over the #2 Racers Edge entry of Jason Bell and Michael Cooper (only just each time though) as Saturdays opener saw the pair move up the ladder to achieve P4 and P5 finishes in class respectively before ending the weekend with a P7 and P9 finish in class on Sunday.

All three series will be out again over the bumps of Sebring in little under three weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Three Vantage GT3’s and three Vantage GT4’s competed within the NLS including the racing debut of last season’s new Evo version from the Walkenhorst team as well as both a 17A variant and GT8R version of GT4 from the locally based Prosport Racing team.

Whilst the two Prosport entries were both full season, most eyes were upon the #34 Walkenhorst SP9 Pro entry of Mattias Drudi and Christian Krognes as they prepared for the teams full Pro entry into this year’s 24 hours later this year. The did that in style with a P2 finish overall at the end of this four-hour race with the teams SP9 Pro-Am entry also taking a P3 finish in class. Whilst the #36 Walkenhorst SP9 Am class entry and the #191 Walkenhorst SP10 GT4 entry failed to finish or where not classified, the #175 Prosport car did secure another P3 in class with the #140 sister car in P8.

That overall great news was sadly in contrast to racing fortunes of the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team within this year’s DTM series for its young driver line up of Nicolas Baerts and Gilles Magnes from Oschersleben.

With a field of twenty-four cars, the #007 of Magnes and the #008 of Baerts at least avoided being ‘tail end Charlies’ for the opening race of the season but failing to be weighed at the end of it did get both disqualified from the results. 

Race two didn’t exactly go much better as although Magnes eventually secured a P21 finish, Baerts failed to finish as the series now looks to its next round at the Lausitzring at the end of May.

Fortunately leaving Germany in a happy note, we also saw the opening two rounds of the ADAC GT4 Germany Series. Prosport Racing were on double race duties with the sole pair of Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s that saw their former champion in Hugo Sasse return to the fold with Pole position for the season opener. Unfortunately, illness struck down Anton Abee aboard the sister #17 for that opener so it was left to both Sasse and co-driver Roman Fellner-Feldegg for the opening race after which the crew delivered a P3 finish for their efforts.

Race two saw both cars return with the #17 car of Abee and Marek Bockmann outperforming their sister car with both taking P2 and P3 qualifying positions. By the end of that hour long race the #19 car had secured another visit to the podium (again) in P3 whilst the #17 car had recovered the situation somewhat with valuable championship points with a P6 finish.

This series now gets a slightly longer break before its next round from the Norisring at the start of July.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Not that was always the case at the opening round to the season from Motegi after an early session off for the lead to the aesthetically bizarre sight of the car running in a mix of its new red and more traditional green livery colours for the race.

Although at the time, the #777 was unable to make the qualifying sessions whilst repairs were being undertaken, the crew did come back from the back of the grid to secure an overall and class P4 finish at the end of that four-hour race.

Hopefully, they will have more luck this time around.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Diversifying out from their usual European based GT series this season will see the team embark upon an eight-round season across circuits in Germany, Austria and Holland. Featuring twenty-four cars for this opening round, the solo driven cars will compete within a one-hour race over both Saturday and Sunday.

The competition within the series will again be very tough.

Walkenhorst will this time be the busiest as they plan to field three AMR Vantage GT3 crews across the available SP9 classes as well as a new Vantage GT4 Evo within the SP10 class alongside two older 17A iteration of Vantage GT4 from the locally based Prosport team within both the SP10 and SP8T classes.

Best performances within each series full season entries have come within the GT4 ranks as they are where the numbers of entries are compared to the just two AMR Vantage GT3 entries within the GT World Challenge.

Both bronze rated drivers within that series did spread their wings a little the other week to race their GT3’s solo at Long Beach within the GT America series and whilst Gray Newell had cause to celebrate both with an overall pole position and podium finish at the end of one race whilst Jason Bell possibly regretted the whole idea of it after technical issues all weekend.

Back within their usual series this time around, Newell will again compete alongside AMR factory driver Darren Turner aboard their #24 Heart of Racing AMR whilst Bell rejoins Michael Cooper aboard their #2 Racers Edge prepared GT3 Evo for two more, ninety-minute-long races.

In GT America there has been something of a trade of as it’s just the #39 Van Der Steur AMR Vantage GT4 entry for Max Hewitt after the #007 Prosport Competition AMR of Tim Savage swaps over to the GT4 America for this weekend. Both drivers rightly elected to skip the street circuit round of Long Beach to concentrate on the more forgiving circuits on the calendar with Hewitt still on something of a high after his P2 and P1 finishes in class last time out at Sonoma. 

His entry list again sees fourteen entries but with just three of those being within the GT4 class, just a finish this time around will automatically receive a trip to the class podium – but obviously, everything is in the winning these days after each of their two forty-minute races.

That leaves the now six AMR Vantage GT4 entries now listed within the GT4 America Series and their two, hour long races this weekend.

Last time out at Sonoma saw three crews visit their respective class podiums with a debut P3 finish in silver for the #4 JMF Motorsport entry for Braydon Arthur and Mike David Ortmann whilst theirs sister #3 car of Jesse Webb and Jonathon Neudorf enjoyed similar spoils in race 2 with a P3 finish of their own.

The #07 Skip Barber Racing AMR of the Garcia brothers also visited the Am class podium after race 2 but the weekend was hard graft for the other two AMR entries for Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir within their #26 Heart of Racing entry as well as the #15 Archangel entry for Adrian Comstock and Thomas Merril.

The additional car to this series will be the #007 Prosport entry for Savage and Dwayne Moses, a driver who has been with the team for a while and raced their older 15A iteration of Vantage GT4 within the World Racing League.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Like Donington Park before it, this second round of the season is also another Endurance Cup round for those eligible entries for which the #50 MKH Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Peter Montague and Stuart Hall is one.

They will compete within an overall GT4 class of fourteen car and be one of four cars entered within the Endurance Cup – three of which are racing within the Pro-Am sub-class. The opening round saw the #50 crew finish P20 overall but P2 within class for their efforts within that two-hour race – the Silverstone 500 will this time be a three-hour affair!

At the other end of the paddock, they will again be joined by both full season GT3 entries from the Blackthorn AMR and Beechdean AMR teams for their Pro-Am #7 entry of Jonny Adam and Giacoma Petrobelli and the #97 Silver-Am entry for Andrew Howard and Tom Wood respectively.

Donington Park certainly saw a fiery Italian aboard the #7 car – first snatching a P5 qualifying slot before being in the hunt of the early stages of that race. That was before contact with a slower GT4 saw the car pick up sizeable front-end damage (and penalties) that would eventually ruin their race to end the day P11 overall, P9 in class.

That, however, wasn’t the case for the #97 Beechdean crew in their debut race with yet another livery colour scheme where dogged persistence from Howard before handing a fast car over to the charging Wood saw them end the day P7 overall and P1 in class for a very welcomed early visit to the podium.

They will this time be joined by a second car out of the Blackthorn stable for team boss Claude Bovet and Charles Bateman within the #19 car. Bateman ran with the team within this season’s Asian Le Mans Series alongside both Adam and Petrobelli/Reema Juffali. Although permitted to race, this and all the other additional ad-hoc GT3 entries will not be points scoring.

This weekend’s timetable will again see private testing on Friday before Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying and Qualifying on Saturday ahead of Warm up and the start of the race at 12:30 on Sunday.