Win some - lose some for AMR teams around the world
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Last night, the Spanish Virage Team were racing around the Bugatti circuit layout of the Circuit de La Sarthe in the Ultimate Cup Series with their #16 AMR Vantage GT4 with drivers Julien Gerbi, Antoni Ledesma and ‘Birthday boy’ Umberto D’Amato.
Qualifying their car onto class pole for last night’s four-hour endurance race, the crew went on to seal the perfect end to the day’s events by finishing P9 overall but importantly P1 in class.
Over at the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca had the Michelin Pilot Challenge crews from the Volt Racing and Stoner Car Care teams compete in the latest round of the IMSA supporting series. For the #7 Volt Racing AMR GT4 crew of Alan Brynjolfsson and Trent Hindman, it was more of the case of improving upon their championship position after some difficult rounds so far but for the #99 Automatic Racing supported car, it was a case of introducing the car and the circuit to MPC novice drivers Weiron Tan and Anderson Tanoto.
For the #99 Asian contingent, their race would come to an unfortunate and premature end after contact with another GT4 car left them stranded at the start of the lap with a puncture and broken suspension. For the #7 car, they would eventually rally to finish P5 overall for some more vital championship points.
Back into Europe and after their P2 finish is a bizarre weather stopped race at the Red Bull Ring had TF Sport compete in the second race of the International GT Open Series as a taster for potential customer Sam De Haan with ‘resident’ racer Charlie Eastwood.
If you to entice anybody towards your product then what better way to do that than to place your car on pole position (which Eastwood did for race 2) and to then convert that into a light’s to flag win for your driver combo at the end. We will now wait to see just what comes out of that experience for De Haan for next year.
Then down a bit more to the south of France had the FFSA GT4 Series run their second race of their penultimate round from the Circuit de Ledenon. Yesterday saw the #007 AGS Events Racing team crew of Valentin Hasse-Clot and Romain Le Roux take an overall race win that bolstered their Silver Cup Championship chances no end but today was not to be as successful for the AMR racers as yesterday.
Still claiming a class podium in P3, the #007 AGS was again the best of the AMR finishers with their #89 Pro-Am teammates finishing P7 in class and their #161 Am Class team mates P5 in that class.
Finally for this report, had the PROsport Racing team compete in yesterday’s return of the NLS Series from the Nordschleife with the local team entering both of their AMR Vantage GT4’s for their bothers Dumarey in the SP10 Class.
Whilst their #176 car would go on to finish P4 in class, the faster #177 car would be taken out of the race with a technical issue whilst leading the class.
Photo credits - GT Open / Virage Group / CSJ Motorsport / F Lagunas / FFSA GT4 / PROsport