Aston runners looking for a resurgence of performance as the GT4 European Series visit Spa Francorchamps
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Whilst we have already covered the antics of the Beechdean AMR team going into this latest, 24hour round of the GT World Challenge Series who full season entries make up just part of the 24hour entry list, this weekend will see the GT European Series run its fourth round of their season with a record-breaking grid of fifty-five cars.
Amongst that entry we welcome back the eleven Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered crews from the Racing One, Prosport Racing, AGS Events and Racing Spirit of Lemans teams, with crews that faltered slightly at the last round of the series from Misano and who need to get ‘back on track’ within their respective class going into the second half of their season.
In the Am Class, the #89 AGS Events Racing pair of Julien Lambert and Wilfried Cazalbon had something of a nightmare of a visit to Italy where their two DNF’s cost them their Championship lead, falling back thirteen points from the double race winning AKKODIS ASP Mercedes AMG GT4 crew.
On the other hand in class, the #18 Racing One AMR crew of Henrik Lyngbye Pederson and Marcus Lungstrass enjoyed their best round of the season so far – more than doubling their points haul by the end of that weekend to place them in P7.
Over in the Pro-Am class, the #25 Prosport Racing AMR of Rodrique Gillion and Nico Verdonck also suffered torment after race ending accident damage in race 1 also saw them miss race 2 for a double DNF of their own that leaves them languishing down in P11 after their decent points haul at Paul Ricard.
Then in Silver Cup, Misano gave those Aston Martin runners a complete topsy-turvey outcome as the then class leading #10 Racing Spirit of Lemans drivers Gus Bowers and Konstantin Lachenauer two DNF’s of their own whilst their teammates within the #19 car (Tom Canning and Akhil Rabindra) came away with a P4 and P6 finish to consolidate their third place within the class.
Double race winners at Paul Ricard, the #24 Prosport Racing car of Higo Sasse and Mike David Ortmann did secure one podium finish in race 1 but an opening lap puncture consigned yet another AMR to a DNF finish in race 2 with another Mercedes AMG powered double race winner powering to the top of the class because of everything.
This weekend’s timetable sees the series take on two private testing sessions tomorrow (Wednesday) before Free Practice on Thursday before Qualifying and Race one on Friday with the second race of their weekend on Saturday morning, before the start of the 24 hours.
Photo credits – Teams / Series
