Weekend's quick round up
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Last weekend was the first weekend of competitive motorsport for many of Aston Martin Racing's customer/partner teams runners and riders around the world, and what a haul of results they came back with as well!
On the opposite side of the world, Australian Ute and saloon car racer Jeremy Gray turned his hand the GT4 class of their national GT series for the first time at their season opener from Albert Park in Melbourne. Competing under the support race programme of the opening round of the 2018 Formula 1 season, the man from New South Wales took his Bilstein supported and former Academy Motorsport V8 Vantage GT4 to an incredible three class wins and a class third in the four short sprint races held over the weekend in some very differing track conditions as well.
Whilst the first and last race of the meeting was under clear skies and on a dry track, the second race turned into an 'into the night' race after track barrier damage delayed that race for over eight hours whilst the third race was under torrential rain!
Gray also became the GT4 lap record holder and the first Australian GT GT4 race winner.
Back in Europe, Saturday saw the opening event of the German VLN Series form the infamous Nordschleife circuit.
Three Aston Martin's were entered into that event, one full season entry from Avia Racing and two customer programmes c/o the nearby AMR Performance Centre. Unfortunately for the #188 V8 Vantage GT4 (SP10) car, their usual consistency was short-lived with the car calling time on the race just after the half way mark of the four hour opener.
The was more success in the SP8 class however, with the very successful Aston Martin Vantage GT8 securing third in class for Pro driver driver Markus Lungstrass with gentleman racer Heinz Jurgen Kroner who finished two laps down to the class winner.
Supporting them as a Performance Centre entry was the #150 Vantage N24, a car used so often before them for Nordschleife GT3 Permit seeking drivers, of Emmanuel Collard and R-Motorsport racer Mathieu Vaxivierre who finished one lap behind the #134.
Next round of the VLN Series is in just two weeks time.
Photo credits - VLN
