Record breaking weekend for Aston Martin Racing in California

Last weekends third round of the revised 2020 SRO GT4 America Series from the Sonoma Raceway on northern side of the Bay to San Francisco produced what must be for most national series, a record breaking streak of podium winning achievement for the most of the Aston Martin Racing teams that made the long trip to the west coast of the USA.

All very sadly missed by us due to prior commitments within our 'day job, like the previous round at VIR three weeks ago, Sonoma was to see their second consecutive triple header race weekend over the Course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday as the Series sought to catch up on races missed from their national lockdown problems from earlier in the year.


Flying Lizard Motorsports Michael Dinan was proving to be the man to beat with his #21 AMR Vantage GT4 having achieved a continuous podium streak since the start of the season from CoTA and this weekend was to be no different in the Sprint races just as he and Co-driver Robbie Foley would again reproduce in the longer Sprint X races.

Not too far behind them this weekend after having lost their way a little at VIR with some simple errors on track were the entries from Utah based Rearden Racing team. Again featuring three cars over the two race formats for customer drivers Paul Terry in Sprint and Jeff Burton alone in Sprint with Burton being again joined by resident team Pro driver Vesko Kozarov in Sprint X.


The #15 BSport Racing AMR of Bryan Putt and AMR Drivers Academy newest recruit Kenton Koch would again only compete in the three Sprint X races of the weekend as would the #33 Rennsport 1 AMR entry of Matt Dalton and Pat Gallagher.

The weekend for the #33 entry would however get off to a disastrous start and then end badly as Dalton would suffer an early testing accident at the circuit that would inflict significant front end damage to his car and whilst the crew and CSJ Motorsport would get that car back on track overnight, gremlins would soon creep back in leading to two DNF's and a DNS over the course of the weekend.


The snippets that we saw of the six available races was one of sheer dominance by the AMR Vantage running teams as the Flying Lizard and Rearden crews white washed the podium in races one and two of the Sprint Series before 'only' taking the top step in the final race on Sunday.

That level of performance almost crossed over into the larger competitive field of the Sprint X races as Dinan and Foley took three from three in their #210 car backed up by two podiums for the ∫Sport Racing crew in race two and three.


From a statistical point of view that was seven podium positions out of a possible nine for the Aston Martin Racing teams in Sprint and 5 podium finishes out of a possible nine in Sprint X. These, added to other podium successes for AMR teams elsewhere in the world attributed to a sizeable eighteen items of silverware going to AMR drivers last weekend alone!!

Now that must be some kind of record??


Whether or not that level of performance can be sustained by the teams or even be allowed to repeat itself under the Series Balance of Performance is yet to be seen but at least we won't have to wait too long as the Series returns at Road America in just two weeks time!!

Well done all!!

Photo credits - GT4 America