The fifth round ninety-minute adventure of the Britcar Endurance Championship earlier today proved itself to be an unfortunately short one for the Addison Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4.

With the father and son combo of Bill and Martin Addison again behind the wheel of their #189 GT class entry, yesterday’s testing results looked favourable for the pairing as most of today’s twenty-five strong, multi-classed entry enjoyed a day’s testing around the arid looking Donington Park circuit ahead of today’s qualifying and race.

Bucking the trend of their usual performance, it was Bill Addison who qualified the car P22 overall and P12 in class ahead of this afternoons ninety-minute round around the shorter National circuit layout.

 

Despite a clean start by all, the #189 race ended abruptly at the start of only the third lap when the camera panned across to see the red and white liveried car side on to the tyre wall on the outside of Redgate’s. Having evidently made its way through the gravel before impacting nose on to the barrier before losing its bonnet and its part within the race. The causation of this event wasn’t seen by the cameras but there were other cars behind them on track at the time.

 

After some very busy race weekends recently, it’s nice to know that this weekend coming sees just one Aston Martin Racing powered entry compete any recognisable championship that we are aware about from Donington Park on Saturday.

Having placed our resident proof-reading expert under some pressure since the busyness of last weekend’s track action, that news will come as some relief to them after they corrected with non-deliberate error or two into just one ninety-minute race this time around.

That attention will be featured onto father and son duo, Bill and Martin Addison who will again be competing with their 17A AMR Vantage GT4 within the Britcar Endurance Championship’s fifth round.

 

This time featuring as a solo ninety-minute race around the shorter national layout of the circuit, their #189 Addison Racing entry will again compete within their GT class entry amongst thirteen other entries in class and a total expected race entry of twenty-eight multi-classed cars.

It will be straight into action for the Britcar entry as a twenty-minute qualifying session in the morning will lead into the start of the race just after lunch. We believe that these races are usually streamed via YouTube if you’re interested.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Whilst one Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered team continued with their fine form from last time out, the other stabilised their performances to come home with some more silverware of their at the end of last weekend’s GT World Challenge Europe Spring Cup event from Magny-Cours.

The Walkenhorst Motorsport AMR team, and particularly their #34 silver class entered Vantage of Jamie Day and Mateo Villagomez, had enjoyed some well-deserved success last time out in the series from Misano just two weeks ago and this time round in France would see that continue – at least for the first race.

 

Having endured some torrential rain during some opening sessions, the first race of the weekend was an into the night race around at least a now dry former home to the French Grand Prix, the #21 silver classed entry from the Comtoyou Racing team had struck early gold by claiming pole position within their class for drivers Oliver Soderstrom and Arthur Dorison. The #7 Comtoyou Racing Pro classed entry of Nicki Thiim and Kobe Pauwels had also bounced back from a torrid round in Italy to claim sixth overall in qualifying.

Whilst that pole position didn’t turn into a podium finish for the #21 crew (as they finished 5th in class), it did for both the #7 and #34 crews as both crews took third in class at the end.

 

Sunday was another day and another qualifying session where this time, the #7 car inherited overall pole position after the faster BMW powered crew were penalised with their sister #21 car also going great guns again, claiming a P2 start to this race.

Whatever happened during the heat of the day, both Walkenhorst AMR entries this time struggled for pace in both qualifying and the race to end their weekend no higher than seventh in class for Day/Villagomez and P8 for the #35 Maxime Robin Gaspard Simon entry.

 

During the race, however, Lady Luck finally evaded the #7 crew as they fell back down to P11 at the finish whilst the #21 crew finally earned their first podium finish of the season after their P3 finish.

For the bronze classed #11 Comtoyou Racing AMR of Felice Jelmini and Marcelo Tomasoni, there was at least some improvement for this crew compared to what was tehir first round of the Sprint Cup season last time out in Misano, but they did still finish at the back of the pack at the end of each race.

 

The Sprint series runners now get a bit of a break after near back-to-back rounds as the Endurance Cup round from the Nurburgring is next up for the teams – the next round of Sprint will be from Zandvoort in about six weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

 

 

It was a worthwhile return to the GT Cup Championship for the Oselli Motorsport team at the weekend as the Aston Martin Racing powered dup secured a brace of P3 class finishes for their efforts at Silverstone.

With both Matt Eddolls and Sam Maher-Loughan again behind the wheel of their #95 AMR Vantage GT4 Evo, they and twenty-one other runners (including the Full Send Racing AMR entry of Steve Lloyd and Tom Wood) raced a slightly differing format to the weekend as race one was to be a usual fifty-minute race whilst race two on Sunday was a one-hundred-minute affair.

 

Competing around the full Grand Prix circuit the # 95 crew came home on Saturday with a P17 overall / P3 in class result – bettering it in race two with a P13 overall P3 result whilst the debuting #27 Full Send Racing crew came home P4 and P5 in class respectively across the two races with their older 17A variant of the Vantage GT4 platform.

Photo credits – Team / Series

 

 

After those six hours that were the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship’s visit to Road America at the weekend, we certainly needed time to digest exactly what did happen out on track, but whatever it was, it did leave one Aston Martin Racing powered crew with a well-earned podium finish.

Despite the mixed track conditions through Free Practice and into Qualifying didn’t seem to hamper the two AMR Vantage GTD entries from the Heart of Racing and Car Blanche teams as Zacharie Robichon secured a P3 start in that class for his #27 car, but only just ahead of Valentin Hasse-Clot and his #068 entry before a penalty for a car ahead moved them both one car forward. Further forward, Ross Gunn had again qualified the HoRT Aston Martin Valkyrie in eighth ahead of the Sunday afternoon start.

 

Cooler but importantly dry were the track conditions as the new for 2026 six-hour race got underway but with over fifty multi-classed cars upon track, it wasn’t too long before the first casualty came to bear when another GTD was ‘encouraged’ into the wall after contact from a passing GTP and into immediate retirement.

The inevitable start-stop cycle of Full Course Yellow into restart before diving sooner or later into another quickly blighted what should have been a cleaner race than what it had been until that point. By the end of the first hour, Robichon was still at the head at the GTD class whilst Hasse-Clot had already swapped out for Marius Fossard to take his first stint whilst hanging onto fourth. The #23 Valkyrie of Gunn was also hanging on in there around seventh to eighth in GTP.

 

At the two-hour mark both Heart of Racing entries had a driver change as Roman De Angelis took over the #23 Valkyrie with Eduardo Barrichello assuming control of the #27 Vantage after which, both cars slotted back into their previous racing position as two further single car incidents on track slowed things down again to aid their recovery.

The #068 Car Blanche AMR then put Trenton Estep behind the wheel and whilst that combination did slide down the GTD order somewhat, a differing pit and fuel strategy would again see their factory driver (VHC) behind the wheel again very soon whilst the Brazilian, continued to cement the hard early graft of his Canadian team-mate within the #27 car up front.

 

Going into the final seventy minutes or so of the race, the third drivers were mainly aboard as Tom Gamble was tasked with taking the #27 car to the flag with Hasse-Clot getting back into the #068 with as much fuel as his car could carry. Whilst the faster GTP prototypes were mainly squabbling amongst themselves both with contact and technical issues, that saw the #23 Valkyrie slowly lift itself up the order and into the top six for the first time in the race.

A further single car off track set up for a final twenty-five-minute dash to the flag with podium potential looking very plausible for all three Aston Martins. Hasse-Clot had managed to get his car past that of Gamble during the #27 car’s final stop to be running in third whilst the #23 was now up to fifth as the final FCY situation caused by one GTP going off alone before another GTP/GTP contact again set off the chat about driving standards changed everything yet again.

 

Those two incidents had lifted the #23 into P2 overall, with the #068 still in third but with the #27 down in fifth and with only two laps remaining, the hopes of any restart to racing looked slim.

Despite finishing second on track, there would be no trip to the podium for either Gunn or De Angelis as a late Drive Through Penalty (converted post-race into a time Penalty) saw the #23 car drop down the order as incident responsibility was cast their way.

 

Whilst the #068 crew did make it to the GTD podium with their P3 finish in class, the #23 Valkyrie still notched up another best at the circuit by beating their last years result by one but for the #27 car, Road America would become another case of what might have been. Despite leading the class for much of the race, a post-race time penalty of their own saw them tumble to P15 in class.

Photo credits – Teams / social media

 

 

There was a debut podium finish in class for the American pairing who took over the Mirage Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 within the FFSA GT4 Series penultimate round of the season from Magny-Cours.

Racing the car previously completed with by both Daid Levy and Jodie Sloss (as they move across the Mirage team garage to their new Porsche entry), that left the renumbered #7 car entry assigned to both Grant West and Alex Bachoura.

 

Previously scheduled to race the Aston Martin at Spa, West and Bachoura (two previous Mazda MX5 racers) had to wait until this weekend before making that dream come true.

Race one on Sunday had seen the #7 car fail to finish but at the end of the second hour long race, the pairing had managed to secure a P3 finish within their Am class.

Photo credits – Team / Series

 

The two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s competing within this weekend’s seventh round of the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie also endured something of a hard time during Saturday’s six-hour race that left both crews leave empty handed.

The #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport crew of Christian Krognes and Dennis Fetzer had secured a P6 start to the race at the end of the earlier qualifying session but had sustained damage whilst the #37 Prosport Racing AMR of Maxime/Guido Dumarey alongside that of Marek Bochmann were still a respectable P16 on the grid with their older iteration of Vantage GT3.

 

During the early stages of the race, the #35 car suffered from that earlier damage that could not be repaired before the race which then need attention after the start. That sidelined the car for nearly half of the race and by the time the car returned to the track – they would only complete 27 of the race winners 41 completed laps not to be classified within the results.

The #37 car fared better as they would ultimately finish P5 within their Am class and just two laps off the race winning pace.

Photo credits – Teams / social media

 

Fuji’s return round of the 2026 Super GT Series was always going to be a difficult race affair for the #777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin Racing powered crew as the effects of the then championship leading status took full effect.

Having skipped the last round due to the cancellation of the fly-away race from Sepang, the last race from Fuji Speedway in early May had been the last time the collective GT500 and GT300 classes had been together ahead of what was to be a ‘usual’ 300km race this time around.

With both Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg back aboard the #777 AMR Vantage GT3, Saturday’s qualifying position of P27 out of a GT300 class size of twenty-nine cars came as no surprise to them.

 

The race itself got underway on Sunday in a startling way as it was red flagged on only the fifth lap after a GT500 car became airborne along the damp start straight before coming down in something of a crumpled heap. Fortunately, the driver was reported as being otherwise no worse for his unplanned flight along the pit wall but the necessary time for his extraction from the car and the clean-up operation was obviously made.

The race eventually got back underway with still fifty-five minutes on the clock but for the #777 crew, the 70kg of additional success ballast and the additional ten seconds on the refuelling meant that they were never to be in contention within the top twenty in class.

 

The crew eventually finished P23 as attention now moves onto Suzuka at the end of August.

Photo credits - Team

It was back to winning ways in various forms for the Aston Martin Racing powered contingent within today seventh round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series from Road America.

The #26 Heart of Racing AMR of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greeneier had got this off to a fine start as they claimed their third consecutive Pole Position within the series yesterday whilst the other three entries were spread down the order and were slower that some of the TCR cars lap times which would see them start this two-hour race between P9 and P25 in class.

 

Track conditions had also deteriorated since the fine sunny weather of early in the weekend for rain and wet tyres being the order of the day as the forty-five strong field finally got underway.

Allan Patten within the #66 Car Blanche Aston Martin had made up early ground from his P9 start as Grisham hung on to the race lead ahead as just how treacherous the track was in the rain was being found out the hard way by other runners. After ten minutes into the race, Grisham was one of those cars as heavy braking along the paint saw the #26 car start to lose the back end and the lead of the race.

 

The additional time spent by the #4 Medusa Motorsport team at the circuit in favour of attending the previous round at Canadian Tires Motorsport Park was still waiting to materialise as Hunter Yeany had taken the start down in P19 in class. The #14 Circle H Racing AMR of David Hampton was the final Aston Martin entry, and he was struggling the most out of these four cars from his P25 start.

Their woes would continue just before the end of the forty minute minimum drive time as the #14 found itself the cause of the first Full Course Yellow having beached itself in a gravel trap. They would be extracted by the safety crews and would be allowed to continue, although laps down to their peers by then.

 

Both the #26 and #66 Astons elected to pit at the first availability but we had to wait some time for the stop stops to be all completed to determine just where each of the remaining three Astons were in the order but many/most cars were now upon slick tyres.

Side by side contact for Greenemeir now in the #26 saw her lose momentum and get passed for position by a couple of cars including the #66 Car Blanche car of Trenton Estep as both continued to circulate within the top eight overall as two quick fire FCY’s for stranded cars off track quickly cooled matters down.

 

That left just over a twenty-minute run into the flag with Estep pushing hard for the race lead and with Greenemeir in ninth. Those positions lasted just for another ten minutes as the #66 muscled its way passed the #46 Mustang muscle car from Team TGM to take the lead but the #4 Medusa AMR of Athan Sterling would put hearts into mouths for the final ten minutes.

Heavy contact with the wall for Sterling was running in P16 saw the front left corner get removed with the car spinning to a halt just off track bringing out the Safety Car yet again. Looking at the needs of the driver involved and the extent of debris on track, the race would finish under the Safety Car with the #66 car taking their first race win of the season with the #26 car coming home in tenth.

Photo credits – Teams / social media

Three further Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered crews see out this weekend’s mainstream events for AMR’s customer and Partner teams across the world as both the Walkenhorst Motorsport and Prosport Racing teams return to the Nurburgring Nordschleife for the latest round of the NLS season and the D’Station Racing team make a return in the Japanese Super GT Series.

Starting in Germany, there has been some controversary already this week after another Nurburgring based endurance series was confirmed for 2027 supported by enticing automatic entries and reduced fees into next year’s ADAC Ravenol 24H main event. All of this would again be in direct competition with the more established Nurburgring Langstrecken Series (nee VLN Series) who race again this weekend with another healthy multi-classed grid.

 

Competing within Saturday’s six hour will again be the #35 Walkenhorst SP9 Pro class entry of Christian Krognes and Dennis Fetzer who last time out in late June (and alongside Mateo Villagomez) secure both overall pole position for the first time plus managing to bring their car home P5 overall, P3 in class.

They will be joined again by the #37 Prosport Racing AMR Vantage GT3 of Maxime and Guido Dumarey alongside Marek Bochmann, a team who was also successful last time out in that four-hour race by finishing third within their SP9 Am class. This weekend’s race will, however, be a six-hour affair.

 

Finally, we welcome the cars and teams of the Japanese Super GT Series back on track this weekend as after an enforced layover following the cancellation of the intended third round of the season at Sepang in late June.

For this weekend, the combined GT500 and GT300 grids of which the #777 D’Station Racing AMR Vantage GT3 of Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg will again be part of as they protect their slender GT300 class lead after their class win first time out at Okayama followed up by a P7 finish at Fuji.

 

This weekend, the series is again back at the Fuji Speedway but this time for a more typical race calendar with a 300km race as opposed to the two individual sprint races as tried last year.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

The GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup is again top of the bill this weekend at Magny-Cours, France as the sprint series takes on its third round of its season and it’s second race weekend in quick succession after it previous round from Misano just two weeks ago.

In Italy, it was the Walkenhorst Motorsport team and particularly the #34 crew of Jamie Day and Mateo Villagomez who shone the brightest out of the five Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered runners after the silver class pairing took a P2 finish in class at the end of both one-hour races.

Their sister #35 car of Maxime Robin and Gaspard Simon were also on par with their #21 Comtoyou Racing silver class competitors over those two races as each crew secured a P5 and P7 in class finish (obviously reversed for the other crew in each race) for their efforts.

Whilst the #11 Comtoyou Racing bronze class entry of Felice Jelmini and Marcelo Tomasoni, Misano was their first sprint race of the season having skipped the Brands Hatch opening before ploughing straight into the Crowdstrike Spa 24 in June. So their two P10 finishes in class at the rear of the pack at Misano did really come as no real surprise.

 

The real surprise was the uncharacteristic performance of the #7 Comtoyou Racing Pro class entry of Nicki Thiim and Kobe Pauwels which saw the pairing qualifying way down into the midfield in P34 overall before launching something of a recovery drive to finish in P16. Race two looked better as Pauwels collected a second row start to the race only to suffer from brake issues that took them out in the early stages to that hour long race.

These five Aston Martins go again this weekend with another pair of hour-long, pit stop punctuated races over the weekend with another combined grid of forty-five entries.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

 

 

Heading into this weekend’s penultimate round of the French FFSA GT4 Series from Magny-Cours sees another change within the sole Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered entry from the Mirage Racing team.

For the opening two rounds of the season, the #5 Mirage Racing Am classed entry was again piloted by both David Levy and Jodie Sloss where the pairing had rekindled some of last years successes together with a pair of class podium finishes at Nogaro before winning the class in both races at Dijon-Prenois.

 

At the next round from Spa Francorchamps in June, Levy suddenly transferred over to the #24 JSB Competition Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 leaving Sloss to see what quickly become a thorough forgettable event alongside Nicolas Siebenschuh. Following an unseen incident with another car within the pit lane for Sloss, that sadly saw the #5 car sidelined for the remainder of the event with Siebenschuh never getting a competitive run out in the car.

 

The entry list for this weekend’s trip to Magny-Cours is now out and we again see a return of the Sloss/Levy combination but not within the Mirage Racing AMR Vantage GT4. Whilst they will race within the team’s #5 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 for the first time, the team’s #7 Aston Martin Racing powered entry will be driven by the series debuting crew of Grant West and Alex Bachoura – again within the Am class.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grange Racing with FSR spread their racing wings a little but further this weekend as the enter their older Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 into this weekends GT Cup Championship visit to Silverstone.

Racing as the fourth round of the GT Cup season, this weekend sees both the #27 Grange Racing AMR compete alongside the Oselli Motorsport AMR for drivers Steve Llyod/Tom Wood within the #27 car with both Matt Eddolls/Sam Maher-Loughan aboard their identical #95 17A variant.

 

This weekend will see a two-race format with a fifty-minute pit stop punctuated race on Saturday ahead of a one-hundred-minute race on Sunday. Whilst this is the first visit to the championship for the Grange Racing team, this is the second time that the Oselli team have ran after their return to the championship last time out at Donington Park in late June. There, the pairing finished at best P3 within their GTH class in the second sprint race of that weekend as well as fifth in class at the end of both endurance rounds.

Official track action begins on Saturday morning with Practice before going straight into Qualifying in the morning and the fifty minute race in the afternoon.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

 

 

 

The Comtoyou Racing team suffered something of a reality check at the weekend after their pair of Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s suffered both misfortune on and off the track that put their double race winning exploits of last time a distant memory within the DTM Series.

Racing this time at Oschersleben within the fifth round of the German based series, the #007 car of Nicki Thiim and the #008 car of Nicolas Baert were hoping to continue the fine form that the Dane enjoyed last time out at the Norisring despite their cars being affected by the expected increase in Balance of performance base weight.

 

Early sessions lead to the obvious prediction coming true of nether car being competitive amongst its class of eighteen other runners as both drivers eventually qualified at the tail of the pack going into Saturday’s opening hour long, pit stop punctuated race.

Despite the hot and dry conditions, Baert would again be saddled with another puncture which the team this time elected not to repair and send him on his way but rather wait until race two on Sunday. Thiim, meanwhile, would do what Thiim does and push to the end where he would eventually recoup a P12 finish for at least a few championship points to add to his tally.

 

Race two would be affected by another bizarre situation on the wrong tyres being fitted to the wrong wheels (i.e. fronts onto rears and vice versa) which again left both cars this time at the very back of the grid.

Missing the rain that affected the ADAC GT4 Germany race, it was another frenetic start to the race as Thiim quickly moved up the order ahead of the pit window. Baert’s own misfortunes within the series would continue just after as his car suffered suspension failure, but he and his crew did at least earn themselves the fastest pit stop time for their efforts.

 

Thiim would eventually finish P13 at the end of race two together with the fastest lap of the race to again secure a handful of valuable championship points as the series moves onto the Nurburgring next time out in mid-August.

Photo credits - DTM