Two poles - two podiums: Not a bad start for AGS Events in FFSA GT4

Their return to their national FFSA-GT4 Series at the weekend for the reigning AM Class Champions of 2019 was something of a success for the AGS Events Racing team after a brace of class pole positions and race trophies were collected by the squad despite their slow start to the opening round from Nogaro.

Having swapped over to the new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 for a parallel programme in both the French national GT series as well as the GT4 European Series, the team was to commit to a three car full season effort this year with cars spread across both the Pro-Am and AM classes.


Delays in confirming their full season line up (probably because of the fluidity of the CV-19 situation in France at the time) saw not all their six drivers being able to test with their new cars or team mates as many of the six would not have been in the 'running' when the Series tested at the Nogaro Circuit earlier last month.

So from these shaky beginnings, the team went to work in preparing the #161 Am class car for drivers Didier Dumaine/Christophe Carrier, the #89 Pro-Am car for team boss Nicolas Gomar/Mike Parisy and the #69 Pro-Am car for Gilles Vannelet/Akhil Rabindra. Like the dozen or so other young drivers competing with an AMR team around the world, Rabindra is again part of the AMR Drivers Academy process.


With another season again being delayed by the pandemic, the SRO sanctioned series ran a similar triple header event to the ones that are being run very successfully over in the GT4 America Series as they strive to catch up upon races in a shorter period of time available.

Going in the weekends first race, the #161 Am car of Dumaine had earlier claimed class pole position at his first time of asking but unfortunately that race went badly wrong for the team as the #161 firstly had to pit with a puncture from behind the Safety Car just as the #89 Pro-Am car came into the garage with race ending technical issues.


Quickly out again for the second race of Saturday, again the #161 car of Carriere had this time also claimed his first class pole position and the repairs had been made to the #89 car in time for Parisy to take up his front row start in P2. Rabindra meanwhile was steadily getting back up to speed in the #69 car to start this race from P13 out of a 33 car entry.

This time, early contact for the #161 from a hobbled and out of control Alpine car scuppered any chances of them collecting more Championship points after their eventual P4 finish in race 1 as Carriere was forced to pit for repairs, losing them six laps to the leaders in class. In Pro-Am however, the #89 Parisy/Gomar car were to earn the team their first podium finish after Gomar brought the car home in third.


Going into Sundays final race saw the three AMR's starting from a midfield position of P11 for the #89, P12 for the #161 and P17 for the #69 and by the end of the pit stop window Gomar had elevated itself into the overall lead of the race for Parisy to take a commanding win by over thirteen seconds.

The sister Pro-Am entry would see out their first race weekend with their best result so far in P10 but for the #161 Am entry, they would inherit their first DNF of the season.


The next round of the Series takes them to Magny Cours, this time supporting the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Series in three weeks time.

Photo credits - FFSA GT4