Lola AMR DBR1-2 - very much a winner at Spa

Saturday, September 15, 2018

They say that local knowledge is as good as an extra few horsepower and that was certainly the case at Spa Francorchamps this weekend as local man Christophe D'Ansembourg powered his way to two Masters Series Endurance Legends race wins aboard his iconic Aston Martin Lola DBR1-2.

Having lost out to the pace of Steve Tandy's recently acquired Lola Mazda before, the Belgium claimed overall pole position for the first race yesterday by just over half a second. Shaun Lynn grabbed class honours in his former JMW G3 GT3 class Vantage GT2 with Colin Sowter a further three places back albeit some eight seconds behind that in his former JWA Vantage GT2. Nikolaus Ditting found himself totally outgunned in his AM DBR9 by the #29 Ferrari 550.

Race 1 into the dusk of Friday night was a lights to flag race win for D'Ansembourg and his Aston Martin Lola finishing ahead of Tandy by just over five seconds. Both Vantage GT2's suffered during the during the forty minute race to finish off the podium in P4 and P5 with Sowter also being a lap down to the class winners.

Starting from pole for Saturday's second and final race of the Spa 6Hr weekend was a much closer affair for D'Ansembourg, just managing to keep Tandy and the following Peugeot 908X behind to claim his second event win of the weekend by less than two seconds.

Dittings performance on track with his older DBR9 was compounded in this race with a 23 second penalty being awarded for speeding in the pit lane but at least for Lynn, he managed to improve from his P16 grid start position to claim second in class.