Since then, some got in some extra race mileage at the stand-alone GT America race at Long Beach California last weekend but in the meantime, others have re-evaluated their season strategy.

What remains the same is within GT4 America as just three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews make up part of the expected twenty-nine car line up for their two one-hour races over the bumps of Sebring International Raceway. The #13 Flying Lizard AMR of Todd Parriott and Tom Dyer is again joined by the pair of Heart of Racing Astons for Gray Newell/Roman De Angelis within the #24 Pro-Am entry and Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir aboard their #26 Am Class car. These cars are still the older generation 17A variants.

In GT America, we see a one car drop in AMR numbers as Todd Coleman chooses not to contest this round after a 50/50 debut at Long Beach last weekend. Jason Bell is again the solo new 2024 AMR Vantage GT3 entry with his #2 Flying Lizard prepared car whilst Tim Savage is back with his older 16A variant #007 Prosport Competition prepared Vantage GT3 having skipped Long Beach.

Then in GT4, it’s a return for each of the #13 Flying Lizard car of Parriott and the #25 Heart of Racing car of Newell.

The biggest AMR news comes from the GT World Challenge America Series where not does just Elias Sabo return with his new 2024 #8 Flying Lizard Vantage GT3 entry like that at Sonoma but now stablemate Bell comes to the top table as he enters his #2 car alongside AMR factory driver Henrique Chaves.

Chaves has already had dealings with the Flying Lizard team after they converted Sabo’s 16A GT3 platform to the new Evo model where he helped them with set up and testing prior to the season opener at Sonoma.

Photo credits – Teams / series / social media

This year running near identical LMGT3 based cars of course sees the Racing Spirit of Leman and Grid Motorsport by TF return to the ELMS series again after their season opener from Barcelona two weeks ago where the #59 RSoL car of Derek DeBoer, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Casper Stevenson just pipped the TF Sport prepared #97 car of Martin Berry Lorcan Hanafin and Jonny Adam in the LMGT3 class but only in disappointing mid-table positions of P6 and P7 respectively out of a class grid size of eleven cars.

This second round will of course see the request success ballast applied to the previous podium finishes and will Paul Ricard being very much a speed circuit, the two Aston Martins will need every KPH available to them if either crew is to make up upon their points deficit within this six-round season.

This week’s provisional entry list details no changes to either AMR and hopefully (yes, there is still a lot of hoping going about) that the #97 car is now fully repaired after its Prologue shunt and a loan car from the Comtoyou team is no longer required.

Supporting the ELMS again will be the Le Mans Cup Series and this time there are TWO Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 listed from the Blackthorn AMR team.

Missing from both the entry list and the grid last time out in Spain, a curiously imposed fine for the team’s non-attendance at least put some hope that they might arrive later in the season and stating that their new 2024 Vantage GT3’s had not yet been delivered (true of course as they were running their two AMR Vantage GT3s in 16A format at the opening round of the British GT Championship over the Easter weekend at Oulton Park), successful delivery of two upgrade kits to the team has proved that point.

This weekend’s third round of the British GT Championship from Silverstone will be the first competitive run out for both the Blackthorn cars in 2024 format although one crew for Le Mans Cup is still to be listed as just team boss Claude Bovet and Team Manager David McDonald are listed – a change to the original full season entry list published by the series.

Photo credits – Teams / series / social media 

Today’s confirmation from the team sees them enter three cars for the May Bank Holiday weekend visit to Brands Hatch with entries again based across the available classes with some familiar Endurance Cup drivers amongst them.

Their #007 Pro class entry will be with a driver pairing of Nicolas Baert and AMR works driver and resigning Sprint Cup Champion Mattia Drudi whilst their #21 Gold Cup entry will figure between Belgian Matisse Lismont alongside Brit James Jakes whilst their third car will be there primarily for experience.

GT4 European Series Pro-Am runner up Dante Rappange will be racing a GT3 for the first time alongside that of Charles Clark for this opening round at Brands as long-term co-driver, Lorens Lecertua finds himself otherwise indisposed for this May opener but will take over from Clark from the second round onwards.

These three cars will be the sole Aston Martins entered and will line up as part of a twenty-five strong grid with eleven cars featuring within the Pro class, five in Gold and nine in the ever ultra-competitive silver class.

Photo credits – team / social media / GTWCE / Patrick Hecq Photo

Just sixteen GT3 entries are listed for this first round of a six-round season.

Like the GT Masters above, the ADAC GT4 Germany Series has also seen a downturn on entry numbers overall and from the Aston Martin Racing stable as this weekend the AMR brand is represented by just one crew.

What this series lacks in numbers, sees the #55 ooze in quality after the East Side Motorsport team entered into a partnership of their own with German racing powerhouse Zakspeed to come up with a driver pairing of Jan Marschalkowski and Phillip Gogollok within the #55 car.

One of twenty-four entries for this weekend’s opener, the GT4 Germany Series has never disappointed in competitive racing.

Photo credits – Team / social media

News from Blackthorn’s Jonny Adam today would suggest that both his #87 Pro-Am classed car that he shares with Giacomo Petrobelli and its sister Silver-Am classed #10 car that is shared by both Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge will this time be the all new 2024 platforms.

Whilst the #10 was in the guise of the new 2024 platform at the Championship’s media day back in March, a first lap crash for Rowledge put paid to that idea as they had to revert to the previous iteration as parts from the Prodrive factory were still at a premium. It is expected that both cars will be conversions rather than new cars from the showroom.

Whilst the #87 crew had to put up with unfamiliarity at the Cheshire circuit for the Italian driver, they posted P9 and P10 finishes in class by the end of the Bank Holiday weekend whilst the #10 had to contend with further damage from earlier an earlier incident for Topham that left the car unable to Qualifying for either race, eventually finishing P7 in class in race one before another incident for Topham in Race 2 ended their participation as well as causing an extended Safety Car intervention.

Hopefully, all is now repaired and lessons have now been learned so this this weekend’s endurance round from Silverstone can be a positive one for all at Blackthorn.

The #97 Beechdean AMR crew of Andrew Howard and Jessica Hawkins also ran with a whole lot of new at Oulton Park with their new Vantage GT3, Hawkins new to the Champiosnhip and all new to the class.

Whilst seat time had been something of a premium for the Aston Martin F1 Academy Ambassador, Hawkins had been seen testing the #97 car under Darren Turner’s tutelage at Silverstone prior to her rushing off to recent F1 duties in China. Hopefully, these long-haul flights back and forth will not affect her endurance too much this weekend.

Despite all this new, the Silver-Am duo were still able to deliver the best AMR GT3 result of the opening weekend with P6 and P5 class finishes.

The best results, however, came again from the Forsetti Motorsport team and their two new Vantage GT4 crews of Jamie Day/Mikey Porter and Marc Warren/Will Orton as both delivered two podium finishes apiece last time out.

The Silver class duo of Day and Porter in the #7 car brought home two class wins from their race weekend whilst the Pro-Am pairing of Warren and Orton brought home a brace of P2 finishes in class for their efforts after two weather and safety car impacted races. All in all, a great British GT debut for themselves and the new Aston Martin.

Soon the now extended and capacity grid (for Silverstone) of forty-three cars will be gearing up for this weekend’s blue ribband Silverstone 500 event around the Grand Prix circuit with Friday testing.

Success penalties will unfortunately come the way of Forsetti as both the #47 and #7 cars are handed pit stop time penalties of an additional 10 and 5 seconds on top of any class ballast and time for the #7 silver cup entry.

Another than that, it will be game on for all five Aston Martin Racing crews!!

Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey

 

Again running with team owner and team manager – Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii respectively, the D’Station team would be running their familiar green liveried #777 within the Pro-Am class whilst the Earl Bamber Motorsport entered #8 AMR Vantage GT3 of Setiawan Santosa would run solo within the Am class.

Whilst Fujii would have run a similar spec’d Vantage GT3 within the recent opening round of the Super GT Series, this would have been in at the deep end for both Hoshino and Santosa as far as race miles within the all-new Vantage were concerned and by the end of Free Practice, the #777 figured mid-way within the thirty-one strong grid and the #8 car at the foot of the table.

The great leveller in motorsport is off course rain and in Malaysia it does obviously rain at some point during the day. That was enough to split the grid in tyre choice for race one and with the events that that caused on track was enough to allow the #777 to claim a warranted P6 overall finish, P4 in class whilst the #8 car finished P29 overall and P4 in class.

A good banker race for the D’Station Racing team there but they were unable to build up that momentum during Sundays second race where they finished down in P16 overall and P8 in class whilst Santosa finished his AMR powered debut slightly higher in P28/P4.

The second round of the series is now just under three weeks ago as the cars and equipment are ferried the relatively short distance down to the Chang International Circuit in Thailand.

Photo credits – GTWC Asia

This time they would be running with drivers Mikey Porter and Matthew Higgins within their #9 AMR Vantage GT4 and Jodie Sloss and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt within the sister #10 car.

Again racing to a four-race format, it was three podiums out of four after the first two races of Saturday as the #10 scooped a double P2 finish within their GTH class whilst the #9 claimed a class win in race 1 before a P5 finish in race 2.

Sunday would prove equally profitable for the Snetterton based team running the older 17A version of the Vantage GT4 as this time the #9 crew delivered a double class win result whilst the #10 crew finished P4 in race 3 before ending their first weekend together in third.

These results place the #9 car at the head of both the class and overall GT Cup championship tables with the #10 car also third in class as the Championship moves onto Brands Hatch in mid-May.

Photo credits – Team / GT Cup

With the demands of the WEC also getting in the way of regular crew line ups, the #27 Heart of Racing saw Roman De Angelis be paired with a guesting Magnus Racing driver in Spencer Pompelly for this one-hundred-minute sprint and with them qualifying second in class, the potentials of another podium at this round looked good.

For the #28 Flying Lizard crew of Elias Sabo and Andy Lee however, this was just another tentative step forward for Sabo and the team as they looked for seat time and experience within the GT3 class having stepped up from GT4 last season. The choice of a street circuit was certainly a brave one to make but the results would ultimately reflect their determination to learn.

Having completed the opening stint through the multiple periods of caution, De Angelis would hand over the #27 car with under an hour to go but contact from another car for the #27 would see that car nose and tail into the barriers which resulted in race ending suspension damage for the team. Whilst it was bad news for them, the #28 Flying Lizard would eventually come home in tenth which in itself, was a tremendous achievement.

Whilst the WRL Series are very efficient in delivering timely timetables and entry lists, those lists sadly do not extend into delivery us their driver base, so we are usually reliant upon the individual teams for that information.

What we do know is that red Martini’esq #172 Vantage GT4 of Jim Hamman will again be there alongside the fellow TLM Racing prepared #888 car that JP Southern and Zang O’Shaunessy took to overall victory last time of (for them) at Barber in early March.

This weekend, we also welcome back the AMR Vantage GT4 from the Team 89X Motorsport which we last saw at Mid-Ohio last season after the sourced both a GT4 and GT8R from those raced within the New Zealand GT Series the year before.

The entry list also shows another Aston Martin being entered by the Florida based Team Speed Syndicate as they enter what appears to be a former IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge entry of Ari Balogh for this 8+7 hour event.

Photo credits – teams / social media / Low Tide Motorsport Photography.

 

After a Le Mans like drivers interaction with the crowds in Imola, it was back to business yesterday as the collective thirty-seven Hypercar and LMGT3’s set about the first two of three Free Practice sessions.

The #27 Heart of Racing car of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli again showed the opening pace over their #777 D’Station Racing stablemates of Marco Sorensen, Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard in the opening session, beating them by just over one hundredth of a second to claim eighth fastest with a similar timed gap between them again in FP2 when the #27 claimed fourth in class.

Coming into Saturday for the final session before Qualifying saw the #777 claim the overall fastest pace in class with the #27 immediately behind at a detriment of just over half a second.

Going into Qualifying, Mateu’s fastest lap was only good for P12 in class at the end whilst James got his car into the later Hyperpole session having finished P9, where he then went on to second overall in class ahead of tomorrow’s six-hour race.

Clearly, the Aston Martin still has some pace within it despite the BoP adjustment and success ballast, but like always, it’s the longevity of the situation that will again pan out to determine who will pick up the silverware at the end of the day. The circuit is tight and twisty so tyre management will again be key (as always nowadays) – the race gets waved off at 13:00hrs local tomorrow.

Phot credits – Teams / social media / AMR.

Last time out at Losail circuit in the desert, both Aston Martin crews earned their way onto the podium of the LMGT3 class with the #27 Heart of Racing crew of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli claimed second with the #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Marco Sorensen, Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard claiming the final step of the podium in what was a debut event for the 2024 Vantage in LMGT3 configuration.

This time, both teams go into this second round with crucially more data about their cars as well as about data of their Goodyear tyres – but then, so does everyone else racing new to their class or with new race car derivatives for the season.

Both AMR teams are also somewhat stretched within their own organisations as the North America based Heart of Racing team also have racing commitments this weekend in both IMSA and GT America from Long Beach California, whilst the Japanese D’Station Racing team are also busing in Malaysia with the opening round of the GT World Challenge Asia Series in Sepang. Both teams are however, again assisted by many of those from within the Prodrive AMR factory in Banbury.

Whilst today has been all about checks, briefings, PR duties and later a driver parade within the town, the first track action will start tomorrow with two ninety-minute Free Practice Sessions before going into a third sixty-minute Free Practice session on Saturday morning before class Qualifying later in the afternoon.

The start of this six-hour race will be at 13:00hrs on Sunday.

Since the last round, there have obviously been changes to the Balance of Performance to the cars in both classes with changes to the Vantage LMGT3’s power to weight ratios (as with other OEM platforms) but also with the application of success ballast for their podium finishes in the form of +10kg to the declared base weight of the #27 car and +5kg to the #777.

Photo credits – Team / social media / D Gibson / AMR