Generation AMR: Abra raring to go after a disappointing 4th at Snetterton

After a very promising first round at Silverstone which saw Richard Abra and Mark Poole win on their debut in the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge with Generation AMR. Richard was disappointed to finish 4th at Snetterton after putting the car on pole by over a second and coming tantalisingly close to a second win.

“Snetterton didn’t go to plan from the start to be honest, starting from pole we dropped down to 6th when Mark spun on oil left by the Aston Martin Lagonda entered car after it made an ambitious move on another car only a few minutes into a 3 hour race which left it with a damaged sump and trailing oil on the track!”

“From there Mark was stuck behind the safety car for the rest of his stint. I then got in the car and caught the back of the pack before the safety car came in and set about making some places up until coming up behind a very defensive Alan Bonner, for me this really lost us the race, I spent far too long trying to get past, we were a lot quicker but to be fair to Alan he defended very well until his tyres went off. I got past eventually after he out braked himself going into turn one, I then went on to gain a 40 second lead! At this point I was feeling very comfortable and thought we had a strong chance of getting a good result"

Richard pitted from the lead on lap 42 handing the car over to Mark who kept the Generation AMR Vantage in the lead for the rest of his stint. On Lap 46 the safety car was brought back after a number of cars went off on the oil left by George Miller’s Tiger Coffee Aston subsequently reducing the teams hard earned lead to zero.

“The team made the call to pull Mark in early and gave me fresh tyres, but the safety car came in just after I left the pits so I couldn’t catch the back of the pack. 20 minutes before the end of my stint I was P2 chasing the NMR car, we were trading similar times until my tyres came back to me and we started to reel them in by over a second a lap! Just as we were on the same straight I got the call from the team that I had to make an unscheduled pit stop as Mark hadn’t been in the car long enough, I was devastated, I was so focused on P1 I was certain I could pass him”

After the pit stop mark rejoined in 3rd but dropped to 4th as it started to rain in the closing minutes of the race.

“NMR had a great race and Giles called it brilliantly on the pit wall so well done to them. Obviously we were hugely disappointed that a simple mistake costs us the win but we could have been disqualified had we not pitted.”

“After a very difficult and frustrating race at Snetterton the whole team is raring to go, I can’t wait to get back in the car; I think we have a good chance even though the entry list is starting to get more and more competition with a few very experienced drivers and even some gold level pro drivers, I’m on a mission to get back on that top step of the podium at Donington next weekend.”

Image: Xynamic