Another bumper weekend of AMR racing activity ahead

Tuesday, August 04, 2020


The last six weeks or so have seen a gradual increase in the number of race series and championships coming back on-line since the easing of their respective host country's period of lockdown but this weekend coming appears to be the busiest yet for Aston Martin Racing and their Partner teams around the world as up to six top flight regional events are set to start up, some as early as this Thursday.

The SRO's GT4 America Series has moved across almost full width of the USA to the Sonoma Raceway in California for another triple header of Sprint and Sprint X races like they did last time out at VIR where Flying Lizards Am driver Michael Dinan kept up his 100% podium success rate in Sprint, albeit after technical issues with one of his Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's that double stinted that car platform in Sprint X.


Not the only AMR racer to receive some silverware over that race weekend of course with the likes of Paul Terry and Bryan Putt with Kenton Koch also taking the metaphorical podium at some stage in the event.

For Sonoma, we expect four AMR cars to take part in each of the Sprint and Sprint X races with representation from full season entrants Flying Lizards, Rearden Racing, BSport Racing and RS one. What we see different this time around is the inclusion off the #33 RS one AMR of Matt Dalton and Pat Gallagher doubling up for both sets of races for the first time this year.


Test sessions for the GT4 runners start Wednesday with Free Practice Thursday and Qualifying with Race 1 on Friday. Fastest laps then denote starting positions for the subsequent races.


Still in SRO world but this time back into Europe, we see the GT4 European Series start their second event of their revised calendar from Misano in Italy.

This sees the return of the two very successful debutants in the series last time out at Imola two weeks ago in the form of the two AGS Events Racing team AMR's. The teams #89 Am class car of Nicolas Gomer and Giles Vannelet came away tops with a double weekend podium with a P2 and P1 respectively with newly announced AMR Driver Academy racers Valentin Hasse-Clot and Theo Nouet narrowly missing out in doing likewise with a debuting P2 finish in race before losing out in race 2.


Next up in Europe we see the start of the International GT Open Series from the Hungaroring featuring a late Spring entry from TF Sport for their drivers Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood aboard one of TF Sport's other available GT3 Vantage cars.

They step into this series to help add to their seat time due to the delays and revisions in their World Endurance Championship endeavours plus like Yoluc told us, the excitement of a quick race is always a good thing over the long term deliberation of an endurance race!


Then with GT Open comes their new GT Open Cup Series for GT4 cars. We know that we have at least one AMR entry from the Spanish Virage Group team although names within the car have apparently changed since the team released their original line up back in the normal pre season days!

No entry list out yet for either GT3 or GT4 Series so we will have to wait and see there.


Next in Europe is of course the second round of the European Le Mans series from Spa Francorchamps in Belgium and again we will see the #98 AMR Vantage GTE of Paul Dalla Lana get in some more race miles of his own ahead of the resumption of the WEC at Spa over the following weekend.

This time around Ross Gunn steps aside to let new team recruit Augusto Farfus step into the car alongside Mathias Lauda for the first time in a race situation as Farfus replaces Darren Turner moving forward for the remainder of the WEC season. Farfus had his first testing experience of the Vantage GTE at a three day test from Motorland Aragon the week after the opening round of the ELMS at Paul Ricard two weeks ago.


A puncture for Gunn on the penultimate lap thwarted any meaningful result for the team despite some excellent running up until then but a result wasn't the 'prize' being sorted by the team as they looked to use the Series to get up and running ahead of Spa WEC and Le Mans.

That leaves us with the second round of the Japanese Super GT Series with Pacific D'Station Racing with their #9 AMR Vantage GT3 as they revisit Fuji Speedway again as part of their post CV-19 continuation calendar.


Remaining another non race attendee for the umpteenth time sees AMR factory driver Nick Thiim again being unable to  travel to Japan and will again be replaced with 'local' driver Kei Cozzolino alongside team regular Tomonobu Fujii. This pair didn't do so bad at the first round two weeks ago scooping some early points with a P10 finish and earning themselves +3kg in success ballast for this round to boot.

Still in Asia, this week should have been the latest first round of the China GT Championship but we understand that that has again been postponed with little reality of progression without further State approval for the required influx of foreign racers and technicians to run within it!


So a bumper weekend - all series feature a live stream service so pour yourself a suitable beverage, pull up a chair and watch  what you will!!

Photo credits - GT4 America / GT4 European / ELMS / Super GT / TF Sport / Virage
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