Mighty double win for the #24 PROsport Racing AMR GT4 at Paul Ricard

With eleven crews again competing within the series, it was the cars from the Prosport Racing, Racing Spirit of Lemans and AGS Events Racing teams that stole the headlines with their first double win for the #24 PROsport Racing crew of Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse, a double class podium for the #89 AGS car of Julien Lambert and Wilfried Cazalbon as well a podium in race 2 for the #10 Racing Spirit car of Gus Bowers and Konstantin Lachenauer.

In the heat of Saturday afternoon saw PROsport Racing stable mate Nico Verdonck storm around the circuit in his #25 Pro-Am class car, holding off the attention of Tom Canning and Hugo Sasse after their five-place grid penalty after Qualifying.

A FCY and resulting Safety Car brought the early frenzy to a halt for two stranded cars after their coming together to make for a one or two lap dash before the opening of the pit stop window by which time, we had already lost the #7 AGS Events car of Noah Andy and Hugo Conde with ongoing technical issues from earlier in the day.

A race changing call for the #89 AGS Events car leading the Am class just after their stop came soon enough having been pinged for a too quicker stop, leaving Lambert having to serve their seven second stop and go penalty – something that would eventually cost them the class win at the end.

Sasse was by now the leading AMR runner in fourth overall and had just twenty minutes to cover the gap to the leaders and that came soon enough as the leading Mercedes crew was also pinged for their minimum stop time, something that gave the young German a clear path to the overall race lead soon after.

Verdonck’s teammate Rodrique Gillion was hanging onto a P4 in Pro-Am for dear life at this point with multiple class rivals ganging up on him from behind and it was sadly inevitable that he was to yield to this pressure to eventually finish with their best result of the season so far in P11 overall and P6 in class.

By the end of race 1, the PROsport car took the win with the two Racing Spirit of Lemans cars close behind in P4 and P5.

Sunday morning second race gave us a similarly enthralling spectacle with Saturdays main runners starting on the second row of the grid in the series customary reverse driver format.

During the opening laps, it was strange to see the pace of the #89 AGS Events car was such that it could also keep up with and beat many of the Silver Cup runners with just five other cars ahead. Unfortunately for the #89 car again, an earlier overtake of the class leading Audi was adjudged to have been undertaken outside of track limits but this time the penalty was just to let the car back through again but within ten minutes of the start – the #89 had assumed a class lead that they would not relinquish.

Just ahead of the pit window, a spin for the #9 Racing One AMR of Christian Gisy was enough to force a spin at the Mistral Chicane ad soon after, the driver parked the car with damage and retired from the race.

With the stops then all complete, the #24 car of David-Ortmann was still behind the Mercedes in second overall with Lachenauer a distant third in his #10 car but whilst Canning, Kenton Koch and Cazalbon were ‘arguing’ over P8, the chance arose for Ortmann to pass the #15 to claim the lead again.

As the race approached its final minutes, a great battle developed between Ortmann and Lachenauer for the race win, but it was to be PROsport’s day again as the #24 car claimed another race win by just 0.2 of a second.

These results leave three Aston Martin teams locking out the top of the Silver Cup class with the #10 Racing Spirit of Lemans leading the #24 PROsport crew, ahead of the #19 Racing Spirit of Lemans car of Canning and Akhil Rabindra. Two more podium finishes this weekend also have Lambert and Cazalbon in a commanding lead in the Am class as the series moves onto Misano at the start of July.

Photo credits – GT European