The headline racing event of this weekend of course must be the return of the Blancpain GT Endurance Series with the 1000kms of Paul Ricard - a classic day into night, multi driver category GT race featuring an entry of over fifty cars.

With the last rounds results still only provisional after eventual race winners R-Motorsport logged an appeal against their Qualifying exclusion for a technical offence before the start of the Silverstone 3 hour event, we still await for the series to declare a result on that one.

Whatever happens with that, the race day displays from both the #62 and #76 Arden prepared R-Motorsport V12 Vantage GT3's was exemplary and another example of just what the venerable Aston could achieve against its more 'modern' equivalents with Nicki Thiim, Jake Dennis and Mathieu Vaxiviere taking a very comfortable 'win'!


In the Silver Cup, the #97 Oman Racing by TF Sport crew of Ahmad Al Harthy, Euan McKay and Charlie Eastwood will be hoping that Lady Luck will be with them this time after having avoidable issues strike them down during the first two rounds of the Series with a podium looking almost certain at Silverstone before contact from another runner forced otherwise.

Packing everything into a Friday/Saturday format this time, Qualifying will take place in the morning ahead of a 17:45Hrs (local) start for the race that will take the end well into the Southern France evening.


After their frustrations with a dominate interloper at Brands Hatch, Nigel Hudson and Adam Wilcox this weekend embark on their annual pilgrimage to Spa Francorchamps for the third round of the GT Cup Championship aboard their Hudmotorsport V12 Vantage GT3.

Having already enjoyed two race meetings where the #12 crew have stood upon the podium they will be hoping that in the absence of that Optimum Audi R8 LMS that they will be having a clear shot at that illusive top step over the course of the weekend.


GT4 runners Chris Murphy and Adam Hatfield are again listed as running in a Team Hard Ginetta as (presumably) repairs are still be made to their usual V8 Vantage in readiness for they appearance at the Aston Martin Racing Festival at Le Mans in just three weeks time


Over on Phillip Island, the second endurance round off the Australian GT Championship takes place this weekend with Andrew Miedecke again joining Jeremy Gray in his JMG/Bilstein V8 Vantage GT4.

Having had something of a 'mare' in the last endurance round at The Bend when the weather played havoc with the proceedings, a dominant performance from Gray at Sandown saw him extend his championship lead with maximum points after his closest rival skipped the event.

Thirty five multi classed cars will compete in the Phillip Island 101 race with four other GT4's competing against the #67 car.


And after all of that - there's always the 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day at Le Sarthe!!!!!

Photo credits - Australian GT / Steve Jackman / BES

This weekend will leave some with a very hectic double driving duty as they contend with not only the 1000kms of Paul Ricard in the Blancpain GT Endurance Series but also the Official Test for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The many drivers caught up in this double duty include TF Sport's Charlie Eastwood as well Euan Hankey and Salih Yoluc (who will again be racing this BES event in their RAM Mercedes AMG GT3 entry) and crew together with the likes of AMR factory drivers Nicki Thiim and Maxime Martin who will be racing their own R-Motorsport V12 Vantage GT3's.


We understand that Jonny Adam is not due to be at Paul Ricard in his Oman Racing coaching capacity due to his factory commitments.

Fortunately, the Blancpain race ends in the evening of Saturday 2nd June whilst track action for the LM24 test begins on Sunday morning leaving just the small hurdle of just over 500 miles of separation between the two venues.


Speaking with TF Sport at the last round of the British GT Championship at Snetterton last weekend, the unlikely saviour to their logistical issue for them comes from within - with the help of a certain Mr Mark Farmer and his private aeroplane who will convey Eastwood, Yoluc, Hankey and some crew from Le Castellet to Le Mans in time for the test.


Whilst nothing official has been said about Messrs Thiim and Martin, should you look at some of the other names included on the Paul Ricard entry, these Aston Martin drivers are not alone with that logistical issue so they'll make it back for sure!!

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey / social media

Hot on the heals of his racing exploits in the Century Motorsports BMW M4 GT4 at Snetterton in the British GT Championship last weekend, Jack Mitchell will have dashed to the airport to catch his flight to China for the second round of the China GT Championship.

Having had a successful double podium last time out in Zhuhai with co driver Ryan Liu earlier this month, just two China Equity AMR V8 Vantage GT4's make the trip to Zhejiang for the next two races with the gold liveried #619 car of David Pun and You Zhao joining Mitchell's and Liu's #618 car.


Two one hour races take place both Saturday and Sunday after two Qualifying sessions on Friday.

Photo credits - China Equity AMR

Following on from JM Littman's social media appeal last week for a livery design to cover their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 that he and Rik Breukers will race at next months Festival at Le Mans has now been confirmed.

Fitting his brief quite nicely for a simplistic Anglo-Dutch connection design for the front end of their Academy Motorsport prepared car, there's going to be no confusion with who's in this one! A big shout out to both Christopher Allen and Marc Ricca for their efforts!



And in other news concerning the Festival, conversations had at last weeks British GT Championship meeting at Snetterton revealed the possibility of yet more entries to the already revealed thirty eight car entry - all subject to the required signing along the dotted line of course!!

Great to see local team Aston Martin Brussels again supporting the Spa Francorchamps round of the International GT Open Series as it returns for its third round of the season next weekend.

Joining the team's resident professional driver Tim Verbergt in their distinctly liveried yellow and white Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 will be former Nissan Academy driver Wolfgang Reip who tested with the car and the team for the first time at a track day at the end of March and again two weeks later.


With Aston Martin Brussels sadly not committing to any long term race programme they have continued to support GT Open at Spa over the years, usually doubling the AMR entry with both Solaris and TF Sport entries of old but this year they will be the only Aston Martin runner.

Reip meanwhile has been conspicuous by his absence since his release from the Nissan driver development programme and then latterly from Bentley in the Blancpain GT Series, so this might be a route for him to get back into the GT racing scene especially with the Spa 24 just around the corner.

We will wait and see .................!!

Photo credits - Reip / Bas Fransen 

The official Aston Martin Racing Festival is not due for another couple of weeks over at the 24 Hours of Le Mans but last weekend's third round of the British GT Championship was a mini festival in itself as the marques GT3 and GT4 customer teams excelled themselves at Snetterton.

With Snetterton again featuring as the second two - one hour sprint races of the season (after the wash out that was Oulton Park earlier this year), it was TF Sport who again took the GT3 Qualifying honours with the teams #11 car of Mark Farmer and Nicki Thiim each taking pole position in their respective Am and Pro sessions. Not to be outdone, Matt Nichol-Jones would also be starting Sundays second race in his Academy Motorsport V8 Vantage GT4 he shares with Will Moore.


Saturday's early chilly and slightly damp weather had been exchanged on Sunday for a glorious day of blue skies and mid twenty's air temperature allowing for the seasons first proper race meeting with the new Pirelli control slick tyre.

Sundays first race was the turn of the cars amateur drivers to take the reigns with Farmer quickly establishing himself a several car length lead from the off over the chasing Graham Davidson aboard his #47 Jetstream Vantage GT3. Chasing them down in his #99 BeechdeanAMR car was Andrew Howard who unfortunately soon had reason for an early and unscheduled pitstop visit having had both the #75 Optimium Vantage and #24 Nissan each assault the opposite corners of his #99 car requiring two new tyres - by the time he exited pit lane he would be almost a lap down to the leader.


Fate did provide the Beechdean car with hope however as a Safety Car (called to retrieve a stranded car on track) allowed them to catch back up with the rear of the pack but their decision to pit a lap later than the others came as the track then went green and that would quickly loose Darren Turner everything that they had just made up.


Despite loosing the lead just before the pitstops, a technical issue from the Jetstream crew allowed Thiim to exit pit lap ahead of them to recover the lead - a lead that he would maintain until the end despite Maxime Martin's best efforts who would bring the #47 car home in second for their first championship podium.


Despite the #75 Optimum car of flick Haigh and Jonny Adam claiming fourth at the chequered flag, a post race penalty for that contact with the #99 Beechdean car would see a 30 second penalty applied and that would drop them down to P9 overall. That decision (we understand) is being appealed by the team?

An equally intense battle meanwhile had been taking place in GT4, again with a much older Aston Martin car battling still very competitively against much newer European machinery. Sadly for the #61 Academy car of Jan Jonck and Tom Wood, a persistent engine issue would see them down on power so they would struggle in both races but the sister #62 of Moore and Nichol-Jones would however have a cracking race to just loose out of a P2 class finish by just half a second.


With race 1 over, Aston Martin Racing's MD John Gaw was already wearing a positively satisfied expression on his face ahead of his Pro drivers taking to the track again for the start of race two later in the afternoon with the #11 again at the head of the pack. All good practice for them as they look forward to the Le Mans test day next weekend aboard the all new GTE.


Ultra competitive as they are, it didn't take Marco Sorensen long to dispatch the normally very quick Barwell Lamborghini of Phil Keen to latch his #17 TF Sport car onto the rear of his WEC team mate Thiim ahead having started from the second row of the grid. An early Safety car for another stricken McLaren GT4 didn't effect matters too much as the two TF Sport cars began to stretch their legs - Nichol-Jones however was having a battle royale as the two Century BMW GT4's harried him for their class top spot.


After the mandatory stop the #17 of Derek Johnston and the #99 Beechdean each came out ahead of Farmer in his #11 car they had to serve an extended minimum pit stop time but that permitted us another racing spectacle as the two former British GT Champions diced until the end. Despite his best of efforts Howard had to settle for P2 which must have gone somewhere the appease their disappointment of race 1.

The timing screen did for a time indicate a first to fifth dominance from the AMR teams in the GT3 class but Graham Davidson would soon be penalised with a 30 second penalty post race for a lunge on the #33 Barwell car that saw Jon Minshaw spin off.


With TF Sport and Beechdean making a clean sweep of the GT3 podium the two very burly figures of Will Moore and Matt Nichol-Jones again made their way to the podium in the GT4 having finished P3 for the second time in the day.

All in all it was a pretty comprehensive performance from the venerable V12 and V8 Vantage. Admittedly the #61 Jonck/Wood car had issues that couldn't be identified and fixed in the time available between the two races so that must have been extremely frustrating for those youngsters. Equally, the Optimum car of Haigh and Adam had been on the back foot all weekend - firstly a main bearing issue with their recently rebuilt gearbox and then a handling issue that sounds very reminiscent of that Adam and Johnston suffered last year when they raced together at TF Sport.


Of course, the beauty of running two identical cars is that you can split strategy and that is what happened with TF Sport leading into Qualifying. Both cars had a similar issue - two possible fixes with the #11 car picking the right one hence two pole positions.

Despite their dominance at Snetterton, the highest AMR team in the Championship table is Beechdean AMR still 12 points behind the leading ERC Sport duo of Yelmer Buurman and Lee Mowle as the championship moves to Silverstone in two weeks time. For Nichol-Jones and Moore, these two podium positions see them elevated to P3 in the GT4 Championship.


As we already know, once the Silverstone round has finished many will be moving over to France to compete in the Aston Martin Racing Festival at La Sarthe which again runs in support of the World Endurance Championship flagship event in mid June.

With sometimes heavy and persistent rain showers having just passed Snetterton by this morning it appears that most of our Aston Martin Racing runners in the British GT Championship had a ball in both Free Practice and Qualifying today.

This morning's FP1 session ended with the top four places occupied by both TF Sport cars, the Optimum and Jetstream Motorsport cars, which then transposed into the top four out of five spaces in FP2 with Beechdean AMR this time taking top honours. The combined FP times confirmed the #99 Beechdean car of Darren Turner and Andrew Howard as fastest overall.


Not to be outdone, Academy Motorsports two V8 Vantage GT4's were also pedalling quickly around the 2.9mile circuit to finish top of that class with the #62 of Matt Nichol-Jones and Will Moore by the end of Free Practice. Their sister #61 car of Jan Jonck and Tom Wood was just a further four places back.


With Snetterton again featuring two - one hour sprint races each drivers qualifying time would be there own with the Am's starting the first race and the Pro's starting the second.

Mark Farmer in the #11 TF Sport AMR was fastest just 0.048 of a second ahead of the #47 Jetstream car of Graham Davidson in GT3 Am with Farmers team mate Nicki Thiim also securing pole minutes later in the GT3 Pro session. The #47 car of Maxime Martin did finish P3 but was given an eight place grid penalty for a sporting infringement of insufficient qualifying laps being entered.


In GT4 Am the highest qualifying was Moore in the #62 Academy ahead of team mate Wood in P5 whilst in Pro both went some better to end their session P1 and P3 for Nichol-Jones and Jonck respectively. All in all - three poles out of four can't be a bad days work!


Whereas there has been no immediate change in fortune for the #17 car of Derek Johnston and Marco Sorensen (qualifying in P10 and P4) having changed its livery back to their 2016 championship winning guise for the event, it would take a brave person to discount them particularly should there be any first lap incidences for the cars infant. Likewise with the #99 Beechdean AMR car who have to date driven there own races with great effect and claiming two podiums along the way.

All in all, Sunday's two races are shaping up quite nicely for all to enjoy either at the circuit or on live stream from the SRO feed.

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey

With additional lighting like these LED's on the front, this can only mean one thing - racing into the night time and that means Le Mans!

Having seen that Aston Martin Racing had popped down to their local airstrip earlier in the week to systems check their three V8 Vantage GTE's, that in turn turned into a more comprehensive last minute test at Snetterton yesterday for both the #97 GTE Pro car and #98 GTE Am car.



With drivers Alex Lynn and Ross Gunn enjoying the (then) Norfolk sunshine we understand that both cars ran simple test criteria ahead of the two cars being shipped down to Le Mans this weekend in time for the Le Mans 24Hour Test Day next weekend.



Joining a convoy of similar silver and grey trucks from the Prodrive factory along the way, this transporter was due to ship out of Dover this afternoon before an eight hour drive down to La Sarthe, arriving at the circuit sometime on Saturday in time to help build the team's garage facility and get the cars through scruntineering ahead of next Sunday's test.

Soon after these photos were taken the heavens opened with some quite torrential rain so it isn't known if they actually went out onto track again after lunch!

Heavy overnight rain and storm clouds looming around the Snetterton racetrack all day today, began to paint another damp picture over what will be the third round of the 2018 British GT Championship this weekend.

Thankfully, those clouds seem to be lifting and passing the track by with the weather forecast still being for a warm and dry window over the Saturday and Sunday track sessions.


To be honest, there isn't too much 'news' to report as AMR GT3 teams TF Sport, BeechdeanAMR, Optimium Motorsport and Jetstream Motorsport reconvene alongside GT4 team Academy Motorsport - everyone wants to win after all - thats the whole point!

The #17 car of Derek Johnston and Marco Sorensen does however revert back to its livery design of 2016 in the hope the 'colour' will improve their luck on track - especially after having their podium position at Rockingham removed with an additional post race time penalty for further unavoidable contact during the race.

We must say that it looks much better - would have preferred the red wing option of Donington last year but ....................!!!


Certainly the five AMR teams, they will also be looking at their Championship positions having seen themselves drop down the table to (at best) third for TF Sport in GT3 and P6 for Academy in GT4 despite continuous scoring at each of the three races beforehand.


Saturday of course see's the meetings only Practice session in the morning ahead of Qualifying later in the afternoon. Sundays two - one hour races start at 11:00 and 15:30. Most, if not all of the British GT teams will have tested at Snetterton at least once this year already.


See you there!

Home turf and a determination to better their performance from last time out in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup was supposed to be enough for Oman Racing by TF Sport to do well in the second round of their Silver Cup season at Silverstone at the weekend.

With eight other class entries competing against the #97 Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 of Ahmad Al Harthy, Euan McKay and Charlie Eastwood, it was always going to be an intense battle for success, particularly against the extremely fast #54 Emil Frey Jaguar, and through Free Practice and Pre Qualifying things were looking good for the Surrey based team.


By the end of the three Qualifying sessions on Sunday morning, their combined and averaged qualifying time of 1:58:148 was enough for them to start third in class albeit 15 places the class pole setting Jaguar but the #90 Mercedes ahead of them in class was subsequently penalised and placed to the rear of the grid - a P2 start for the #97 car then!

Al Harthy was first in the car through the difficult opening stages of the race, having to circumvent navigate debris on track as the Silver Cup championship leading #90 Mercedes suffered a sudden and catastrophic tyre blow out landing them heavily into the wall at Copse in the opening minutes of the race. By the time a cautious Al Harthy had finished his hour long stint he had dropped back to P6 in class although McKay (next in the car) was soon able to recover to and hold onto to P4 in class in the opening few laps of his stint.

Such was his progress through the field that he was comfortably holding P3 in class at the end of his 30 laps and just over seven seconds behind his class leaders ahead but nearly 30 seconds ahead those behind him (in class).


Handing the #97 car to the 'faster' Charlie Eastwood, the race was looking good for (a) a decent high end finish or (b) that becoming a class podium position in its own right just under an hours time but motor racing can be cruel sometimes. Eastwood rejoined the challenge that McKay had instigated against the #78 Barwell Lamborghini for P2 in class  - a dice that could have gone to the end with little over 20 minutes of the race remaining but contact was made with another Lamborghini in another class causing steering damage to the #97 car that necessitated a return to pit lane.

The time lost in the garage effecting the replacement of a bent steering arm was enough of course to drop the Oman Racing team down the timing screen, and whilst they did get out on track before the end, there wasn't enough time to try and recover the situation. P5 was their finishing position.


“It’s disappointing as again we showed good pace,” stated TF Sport Director Tom Ferrier. “A podium was on the cards easy. Massive credit to the guys to fix and turnaround the car that fast as we still got a fifth place and good points. We cannot afford any slip ups now moving forward if we are serious about winning this championship.”

On the subject of the Aston Martin Racing Festival from Le Mans next month, hows about chipping into to purchasing this fully rebuilt AMR V8 Vantage GT4 having watched its current owner race it at  the Circuit de La Sarthe.

Fully rebuilt to zero miles ready for the 2018 calendar, this 22GT Racing prepared is available to buy straight after the Festival event and the owner invites you down to Le Mans to watch it with a full AMR Hospitality package thrown in to boot!

Full details can be found HERE

Aston Martin Racing Festival runners, JM Littman and Rik Breukers are looking for inspirational design ideas for the front end of their Academy Motorsport V8 Vantage GT4.

With their entry now confirmed by Aston Martin Racing, their car will be part of a trio of cars from the Worestershire based team and one of 24 GT4's taking part in the Festival around the hallowed Circuit de La Sarthe next month in support of the 24Hour event itself so they are looking for something to stand out.

It would be a shame to think that R-Motorsport's otherwise faultless display in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup meeting at Silverstone over the weekend could come to nothing if they fail to win their appeal for alleged sporting regulation irregularities.

With the team having come away form the opening round of the Blancpain Series in Monza with a DNF and a lowly P9 finish, they had hoped that the expanse of the Silverstone circuit would allow their two V12 Vantage GT3's to stretch their legs.

With a steady improvement between their two cars over the Free Practice and Pre Qualifying sessions, its was Mathieu Vaxiviere who made the defining statement for the #76 car early in Q1 this morning setting a time of 1:56:637 - a time that would not be beaten although Nicki Thiim was required to put in a quicker lap in Q3 to improve their three way average lap time to retain that position at the end.


With the exception of less than one complete lap, the #76 car put in a faultless light to flag performance to take the overall win at the end of the three hour race. Vaxiviere started the race for the team and for a time had the team's sister #62 car acting as 'wing man' as he built up a lead from the #88 Mercedes. Pitting one lap later than the #88 car, Jake Dennis found himself coming out of the National pit land just behind the Mercedes but by the time they had reached Luffield for the first time, the Red Bull F1 tester had reclaimed the overall lead that they would not be relinquished again.

That left Thiim with the relative simple matter of just having to drive for his hour long stint managing the gap to the cars behind which he did leaving eleven seconds in the bag at the chequered flag.


For the sister car #62 car of Alex Brundle, Marvin Kirchhofer and Maxime Martin, they were never able to quite match the pace of the #76 car and would ultimately finish P5 overall - a finish that was still an improvement from last time and comes with a decent haul of points.

For the #76 car, there remains this appeal process that remains in place after series officials found that the cars data logger had not collected any data during the Qualifying process earlier in the day. As the team formally appealed that decision with the Stewards they were allowed to keep their qualifying position for the start of the race.


Until the series conclude this appeal process the race result shall remain provisonal.

Either way in that process, Silverstone was a still a magical event for the team running the oldest iteration of GT3 car in the top flight European series. Whilst the alleged transgressions are matter of fact, they were not performance enhancing so what was seen on track was true pace.

The teams now just have two weeks to settle themselves for the day to night race that is the 1000kms of Paul Ricard.

Photo credits - Blancpain