Successful Spa 24 Test for the three Aston Martin Racing GT3 crews
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Three beautiful cars, two days around one of the best racetracks in the world saw the Total Energies 24 Hours of Spa Official Test conclude today with both the Beechdean AMR and Heart of Racing with TF Sport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 crews putting in the necessary set-up mileage ahead of the main event scheduled for the end of July.
News came late of the partnership between TF Sport and American IMSA team, the Heart of Racing to enter another AMR into the SRO’s flagship and premier GT3 event for ‘their’ drivers Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas alongside TF’s own resident ‘pocket rocket’ Charlie Eastwood in another Pro class entry to go alongside that of the #95 Beechdean AMR Pro car of Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorenson and Maxime Martin.
What came even later to that was news from the circuit on Monday of that partnership extending into one of the full season Beechdean AMR GT3 crews as Heart of Racing confirmed that IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship Sprint Cup and AMR Drivers Academy winner Roman de Angelis would be joining Andrew Howard and his Gold Cup do-drivers of Valentin Hasse-Clot and Theo Nouet aboard their #97 Gold Cup car.
Running over four sessions over the two days available, it comes as no surprise that none of these cars featured towards the top of the timing screens as that isn’t what AMR teams tend to do – rather work methodically through own programme of works ahead of the main race weekend.
At the end of today’s final session, the #95 Beechdean was unsurprisingly the fastest Aston Martin finishing P18 overall whilst the #23 Heart of Racing Pro car finished P38 and the #97 Gold Cup classed Beechdean in P45 out of the sixty-two cars than that ran in the test.
Emphasis for many now turns to this weekend’s IMSA round from Watkins Glen as Gunn, De Angelis, Riberas and Martin flew off the to the USA for that whilst Hasse-Clot flies south for the next round of the FFSA GT4 from Albi and undoubtedly, Eastwood will be on AMR Academy duty somewhere else in Europe too!
Photo credits – GTWCE / B Decancq
