Seven Aston Martin Racing runners leave Sprint X's visit to Sebring empty handed

Two difficult races it transpired to be for the seven Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 crews at this weekend’s penultimate round of the GT4 America Series from the Sebring International Raceway in Florida.

Whereas last time out at Watkins Glen where the collective AMR grid walked away with five class podium finishes between them, this weekend saw them struggle for pace where the best class finish between them was a P4 in the Silver Cup class for the #062 Dexter team – but then, that was a very distant result to those in class ahead of them despite some short-term bouts of pace and determination amongst them but at the long term cost of any decent finishing position.

With the Pro-Am class still undecided going into this weekend, the leading Aston in that class needed nothing short of a class/race win to take the championship any further against the season dominant #47 Nolasport Porsche of Jason Hart and Matt Travis. Despite Bryan Putt and Kenton Kock finishing P9 overall and P5 in class, a P2 overall finish from the #47 car sealed the Pro-Am Championship for the Nolasport crew with three races still in hand.

The fairy tale start to the GT4 America endeavours for the #50 3R Povoledo Racing Aston Martin was also begin to unravel in Florida as drivers Ross Chouest and Aaron Povoledo were to score a distant P10 in class finish during race 1 but where then to suffer damage during the second GT America race meaning that the car could not be repaired in time by their supporting Dexter Racing team for Sundays second Sprint X race.

The #59 WR Racing Aston Martin of Paul Terry and Owen Trinkler had earlier confirmed that Trinkler would be seeing out the 2021 season with the #59 car after their debut success together at Watkins Glen two weeks ago. Sadly for them, there was to be not repeat of that with the crew taking lowly P12 and P11 finishes in class in both races.

The #2 GMG car of Jason Bell and Andrew Davis had better results in these Sprint X series races with solo podium finishes for Bell in GT America races continuing to build confidence with Bell to help them then progress through to P9 and P7 in class results respectively over the weekend.

The mixed bag of results continued for the #24 Heart of Racing car of Gray Newell and Ian James too after another solo podium for Newell in an earlier GT America race only for them to fall back with two very disappointing results in Sprint X, each at the tail of the race finishing line up.

So for these guys, the final round of the 2021 GT4 America Series will be at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in two weeks’ time. Sadly for us this year around, we will also not be seeing any AMR drivers/teams confirmed class champions this year but there is still possibility for some to increase upon their present championship position with two good results under their belts.

It has been yet another highly entertaining series so far, showcasing multi class GT4 racing at its very best with the circuits North America has to offer. Once those at CSJ Motorsport are back at the circuit at Indianapolis (get well soon) we MAY start to here of some plans from various teams ahead of any 2022 campaign.

Photo credits – GT4 America / CSJ Motorsport / F Lagunas / Teams