A smaller than usual Aston Martin Racing GT4 contingent travel to Zandvoort

We hoped that the last round at Misano two weeks ago was just a blip in the system for the usual seven Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 contingent as the GT4 European Series moves north this weekend for the penultimate round of their 2019 season from Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

Where as Misano saw five examples of AMR's GT4 finest compete with some degree of success, Zandvoort shall see just two teams of two compete around the 4.3km coastal circuit amongst the declared 30 car entry. Numerically the smallest grid of the series so far having previously enjoyed numbers of up to 42 cars for the round at Paul Ricard in early June, Belgium based Street Art Racing return with their two cars that compete in both the Silver Cup and Am class whilst Worcester based Academy Motorsport also return with their pair of Pro-Am and Silver Cup entries.


Misano wasn't a good round for the #62 Academy car of Will Moore and Matt Cowley as technical issues saw that car retired from the event even before Qualifying had started whilst the sister #61 car had to use a deputising driver to cover for the sickness of full season racer Fiona James alongside Tom Wood.

Hopefully, two clear weeks back at base has allowed the team to pin point and remedy the ailments within the #62 car and allow James to recover physically to a stronger position. We hope to bring you a small piece from Matt Cowley about his transposition into GT racing for single seaters later on.


The other pair from Street Art Racing include Am Class leaders Clement Seyler and Pascal Bachmann who have gone from strength to strength together considering Seyler's previous lack of motor racing experience. Assistance from AMR factory driver Maxime Martin will of course have helped massively. The other Silver Cup pairing of Julien Darras and Jamie Vandenbalck remain the second best AMR runner in the class in tenth and will have to use the remainder of the season as a development exercise after a disastrous season opener at Monza when their brand new car was severely damaged by another car.

Missing are again the #44 car of Generation AMR SuperRacing for unknown reasons but also now both PROsport Performance AMR Vantage GT4 cars are missing. The team have undergone something of an internal transition between series as former team GT4 racer Florian Thoma has moved up to GT3 and has stopped both his prior GT4 European and ADAC GT4 Germany commitments. The team did attempt to transpose the now vacant seat next to Akhil Rabindra with a driver from the other car but technical issues aboard that made their trip to Italy a fruitless exercise - what will happen with the two entries for the last round in Germany we do not yet know.


The team did compete in the 24H Series event at Portimao last weekend but ended with ongoing technical issues during the night. The absence may be just down to needing time to sort the issues out in the workshop rather than making do in the paddock?

Racing again with the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe series, track activity begins on Friday with two Free Practice sessions ahead of Qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday and Race 2 on Sunday.

Photo credits - GT4 European