Having just endured their ‘worst’ non-podium securing result to date this season at the last round of the FFSA GT4 Series last weekend, French AGS Events Racing Team moved onto Spa Francorchamps this weekend for the penultimate round of the GT4 European Series with their two Silver Cup and Am Class title leading Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s.
Again, running in support of the GT World Challenge Europe Series at their delayed Total 24 Hours of Spa, the team would again have drivers Gilles Vannelet and Valentin Hasse-Clot run double driving duties as each swapped between their GT3 and GT4 cars. More importantly, both of these drivers and their respective co-drivers in Nicolas Gomar and Theo Nouet was that each had Championship positions to secure/improve upon before the Series moves onto its finale down at the Circuit Paul Ricard in the South of France in two weeks-time.
Fridays opening round was conducted under some of the most atrocious track conditions that the Ardennes could throw at the 7km circuit with the race starting from behind the Safety Car, but at least the pole setting #27 AMR car of Nouet had the clearest of views of them all with Gomar not too far behind in P5.
Two laps – twelve minutes later and the grid was eventually released but with standing water on parts of the track and spray hanging in the air along the tree, visibility and grip was always going to be of issue but surprisingly enough, there were few moments of inter car contact. By the end of their otherwise short period of race time, both Nouet and Gomar had cemented their positions on track or in class to pit from the lead.
By the time the lead cars re-emerged from pit lane, the rain had at least all but stopped but conditions were still treacherous as Hasse-Clot started extending his cars overall race lead by the tune of about five seconds every five minutes. Vannelet meanwhile was given some Pro-Am cars a race for their money and despite his own Am grading, was comfortable circulating to the end in P8 overall but more importantly first in class! Ahead of him, Hasse-Clot collected the #27 cars second overall race win of the season so far with each AGS Racing Aston crew further extending their Championship lead in the process.
Saturday morning’s second race at least was to start on a wet but drying track as Hasse-Clot starting the #27 from P3 and Vannelet starting the #89 car from P5 with some cars even electing to start upon slicks!!
No Safety Car start this time around, but both Astons appeared to be sluggish at the start and found themselves swamped going into turn one and had to battle not to lose any further track position by the end of the Kemmel Straight.
Even with the Pro-Am cars ahead continuing their battles ahead, the #27 car appeared unable to keep up with them but as with any motor race, it is more about being at the right place at the right time for Hasse-Clot as successive opportunist moves soon found him elevating himself from P4 to P2 whilst Vannelet was running P6 overall – again P1 in Am.
Both running long into the pit window again, any advances gained on track was soon lost to the #27 crew as it was awarded a one second stop-go penalty for running a too short a minimum pit stop time and that dropped them back from another overall podium position to a battle for a Silver Cup Class podium within the final ten minutes that Nouet had available to him.
As the brightness quickly faded and skies darkened once again, Nouet was able to pick off another car to climb back up to P4 overall – P3 in class at the chequered flag whilst Gomar secured the #89’s second class win of the weekend to further bolster their AM Class Championship claim. At the time of writing, official confirmation of post race technical inspections were still being awaited so that the Championship standings so far could be confirmed,
The sixth and final round of the GT4 European Series will be at Paul Ricard in two weeks time.
UPDATE
With Saturdays race now officially ratified by the Series, the results from this penultimate round of the season have the following effect. Nothing is secured just yet!!!
AGS Events Racing continue to lead the Overall Team's Championship table by 65 Pts
Vannelet/Gomar continue to lead Am Drivers Championship by 35 Pts
Hasse-Clot/Nouet continue to lead Silver Cup Championship by 24 Pts
Photo credits – GT4 European Series
