International GT Open at Monza this weekend - but not in a form we know!

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Not the only crew mate to be racing again this weekend sees the remaining two thirds of TF Sports Le Mans 24hr GTE Am winning team of Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood also get back down to business this weekend – this time back in the International GT Open Series with their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3.

With Jonny Adam racing with Garage 59 in their new Vantage GT8R over at the ADAC Total 24 Hour at the Nordschleife, Yoluc Eastwood and crew have made their way back down to Monza in Italy for the fourth round of six of the GT3 series which will this time feature GT4 cars as well.

Being another series hit by the early issues of budgets and travel accessibility from the ongoing global pandemic, the event supporting GT Cup Open Series has not been able to muster entry numbers this year that they enjoyed last year to a point where their last round at Paul Ricard featured a grid of just ten cars. With further withdrawals going into their third round at Monza has forced race organisers to merge the few GT4’s that will be there in with the GT3 cars to form slightly larger and multi class races – a tried and trusted formula that will add a little bit of uncertainty for some in the larger cars.

Whilst we don’t know if Team Virage will be there at all with their Vantage GT4 and its two drivers of Robert Hefler and Phillippe Valenza, we do know that the team in red will be there with their #34 AMR Vantage GT3, still high from the spoils of success from Le Mans no doubt but still with a job to do if they want to secure the Series top GT3 accolades.

Featuring again a two race, pit stop punctuated programme over the course of the weekend, TF Sport lay just eight points behind the Championship leading team with six races still to come.