Final weekend round up
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Latest Aston Martin Racing recruits, the Virage Group had their two brand new AMR Vantage GT4's out racing for the first time last weekend at the second round of the SRO GT4 Southern Series from the Jarama Circuit to the north of Madrid.
Only having received their two cars from the Prodrive factory just a couple of weeks ago, it appears that after juts two shakedown tests both at Donington and Valencia the team felt ready to make that step in and join the GT4 Southern Series at their first available opportunity.
Entering cars into both Pro Am and Am classes, things looked good in Q2 as the #94 car Pro-Am car of Jon Aizpurua and Nicholas Silva claimed P6 and then pole position respectively for the two races on Sunday whilst the #95 Am Class car of Peter Peters and CO Jones claimed two P4 starting positions out of a grid of just eight cars.
An unfortunate accident for the #94 car on only the seventh lap destroyed the front end of the car and brought about a temporary stop t the race as the driver and crash scene was attended to. Thankfully Aizpurua was not injured in the incident. At the restart, the remaining Virage car dropped time at the pitstop before recovering to finish P5 but still claim an important P2 Am Class podium.
Due to the earlier accident, Silva was unable to take up his pole position slot for race 2 and the sister car suffered from a puncture on the opening lap. Despite this, the car was able to recover its position to finish with another P5 placing to claim its second Am Class podium of the weekend.
Early days for the team still as they get to grips with the characteristics of their AMR machinery. This is the team that Freddie Hunt has been associated with in the GT4 Southern Series but he was of course at Le Mans last weekend competing in the Michelin Road to Le Mans races in an LMP3.
The next round off the Series will be in Villa Real, Portugal in early July.
Photo credits - GT4 Southern Series / Virage Group
Again running in the series as a solo driver aboard his Schaler Motorsport prepared #12 Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 was Timo Scheibner.
Qualifying P8 overall and P2 in Class, the German went on to claim a P5 overall finish and yet another class win in the first of the two GTC races before starting the second race from P7 overall and first in class. That race he went on to finish P6 overall and another class win.
In the longer Dunlop 60 race, Scheibner again Qualified P9 overall / P1 in class to finish just one place higher to expand his trophy cabinet still further with another class win.
The series returns to Hockenheim for the fifth round in early August.
Photo credits - DMV GTC
