Puncture thwarts PROsport Racing at VLN return
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Featuring a pair of returning customer drivers, this season stepping up from the VT3 and V5 classes of last year in one of the teams Porsche Caymans to the latest GT4 creation from AMR, as well as 'resident' team driver coach in Belgian Nico Verdonck.
Competing in the SP10 class for SRO homologated GT4 cars amongst a starting field of over 140 cars for this opening round, it was the duty of Verdonck to set the cars Qualifying position for the car in the tricky damp and windy conditions of Saturday morning, placing the car P6 in class and P34 overall.
Also starting the race for the team, Verdonck lifted the #176 car up to P3 by the time of the cars first full service stop, a stop that was made using the new paddock area created behind the usual garages for the teams to change tyres and drivers with cars then progressing to the pit lane for refuelling - very much like how the 24H Series sometimes operate.
Being their first race in the AMR Vantage GT4, it wasn't too surprising to see Belgian Guido Dumarey drop down the order during his stint of seven laps before he too pitted to swap over to the Swiss based Alex Walker for the race to the flag.
Walkers stint unfortunately came to a premature end when, still on his out lap onto the older Nordschleife circuit, he picked up a puncture that left him unable to get the car back to the pits without wasting an indeterminable amount of time or more importantly, risking probably significant damage to the car and himself. The car was retired out on circuit on lap 15 - thirteen laps behind the class winning BMW M4 GT4.
We will have to wait to see if the car returns for the second round of the series in two weeks time.
Photo credits - Verdonck / NLS