A stellar performance from the Aston Martin contingent from the FFSA GT4 at Spa Francorchamps

What an extra-ordinary display of skill and ability that was from the Aston Martin Racing customer and partner teams from the French national FFSA GT4 Series at Spa Francorchamps over the weekend as they supported the British GT Championship at the start of the SRO’s Speedweek.

Not only did we see best performances to date from some, but also more class podiums as well as an overall race win on Sunday.

The bulk of that achievement of course came from the new powerhouse in AMR racing within France, and Nicolas Gomar’s AGS Events Racing team and their four AMR Vantage GT4’s that they enter into their national series. In turn, their collective performances were supported from the individual performances from that of the Mirage Racing and JSB Competition teams who also ran some great races and the sometimes-challenging conditions that the Belgian circuit presented albeit not quite on the three steps of the podium.

The first hour long race on Saturday took place in the fading light of a wet summers evening as persistent rain again came back to affect circuit. A technical issue for the #007 AGS car of Romain Leroux saw him start from the very rear of the grid before he came through to hand over to Valentin Hasse Clot from P14 out of a grid of thirty three cars, before he in turn went on to take P10 overall/P3 in Silver Cup before being elevated up to P2 in class thanks to another’s post-race time penalty.

If that wasn’t enough, the #89 Pro-Am entry for Gomar and Mike Parisy also navigated themselves around treacherously wet circuit to come home P3 overall and in class with their #161 Am class car of Didier Dumaine and Christophe Carriere rounding off a good day for the team by claiming a further P2 in class finish for themselves as the race ended under the cover of near darkness.

Sunday was a different day with sunshine beating down onto the grid as they started their second race of the weekend. Whilst a heavy shunt for the #222 Marge Racing Alpine delayed the race for nearly half an hour for barrier repairs, a highly motivated Hasse-Clot soon has his #007 car up to P7 overall whilst the #8 JSB Competition car of Jean Laurent Navarro was dicing it with confidence just behind in P10 – certainly the #8 cars best performance to date.

Pit stops again over and with rain now lightly falling, Leroux was going to finish the job that he had started in race 1 and took his #007 up from P5 after the stop to lead the race outright with just ten minutes remaining. Initially dropping back on his outlap, Julien Briche (now aboard the #8 car) solidified their P10 running position for most of the race to claim their best result of the season in P10 overall and P6 in Pro-Am.

Despite being pressurised by one of the Toyota’s at the end, Leroux hung on to claim their cars first race win of the season so far to take the Championship lead in the Silver Cup class. The #161 car also came back with another Am Class podium in P3, a result that takes them up to P3 in that one. Great stuff.

The Series now takes a summer break before reconvening at Ledenon in mid-September but for many, they will stay at Spa and prepare themselves for next weekend and the next round of the GT4 European Series.

Photo credits – FFSA / Teams