Heads held high at Generation AMR SuperRacing
Monday, December 19, 2016
Twelve hours of gruelling racing at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi later and Generation AMR SuperRacing will have repacked their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 into its shipping container with an air of personal satisfaction and a job well done despite not standing upon the podium on Saturday.
Having arrived at the circuit earlier in the week expected the driving workload to be spread across a four driver line up, final T's and C's with that driver could not be agreed so it would all be down to the driving abilities of Matt George, James Holder and Chris Murphy for Saturday's two part race.
Against teams and drivers who were at least on paper far superior than themselves, the SuperRacing trio had earlier set about upsetting the the form book by qualifying their #44 second in class - an achievement in itself considering their combined experiences and come the start of the race George was even able to gain and consolidate an increasing lead in the GTX class right up until this first stop.
Running about a 25 lap stint pattern, track position was soon lost after a series of penalties were applied (presumably for track limits) soon dropped the #44 down to fourth in class but critically four laps off the class leaders position by the end of the first six hours.
With the second six hours of the race starting under the twilight of the desert, the backbone of the driving work was for Murphy and Holder to share and with the #9 Porsche Cayman suffering technical issues that would render it stationary in the garage for over half an hour a podium position seemed even possible although there was still a long way to go.
Unfortunately for the guys, the deficit to the their class fore runners proved too much and despite a gallant final charge from George in the final 45 minutes of the race the #44 car finally crossed the line in a very credible fourth, a lap down on the 3rd placed #40 Porsche Cayman having covered a massive 269 laps.
The team haven't confirmed what 2017 has install for them but by he fact that they took a brand new V8 Vantage with them to Abu Dhabi surely says that they do have an intention of some sort so we will have to wait and see what that is.