R-Racings AMR touch of magic brings home another GT4 Class win at Spa Francorchamps

Scheduled for another two-hour affair around the 4.3mile circuit, Miller held his nerve for his first GT racing start at the Spa circuit to hold onto P3 going into La Source for the first time and then to move up to P2 as the pole setting Ford Mustang dropped back.

Chasing their GT4 class pole setting Toyota, Miller would soon drop back to P3 behind the #42 Stellar Audi whilst Topham struggled with confidence if nothing else (having had a crash into the wall at the start of FP2 yesterday) to maintain his P8 starting position at the head of the three Pro-Am entered cars at the rear of the pack.

Just after twenty minutes, a Safety Car for a stricken GT3 halfway up Raidillon gave the drivers some rest bite from the high ambient temperatures during the twelve minutes that that accident took to clear and at the restart, Miller was again on the ball enough to keep the fast Mustang behind him as he quickly built up a three second margin between them going into the pit stop window.

Topham was unsurprisingly one of the first to stop to hand over the #27 car to Darren Turner from P8 but that was after he had had to serve an additional 10 seconds of success penalty time thanks to their podium finish last time out at Snetterton.

On the hour mark, the #23 car would pit from second in class but being a Silver Cup car, they also had an additional 26 seconds of stop time to count down but then, so did their immediate rivals with the race. As Jamie Day exited pit lane, he retained the cars P2 position relative to the Toyota ahead, but Turner was soon moving up the order up to sixth in class and behind their Pro-Am Championship rivals from Team Brit.

For the next three quarters of an hour, that #68 Team Brit McLaren was the widest car on the grid as ex-AMR Vantage GT4 Britcar racer Bobby Trundley raced the race of his life against the multiple Le Mans winner to stay ahead both on track and within their class.

A break came for the #27 Newbridge crew as well as the #23 R-Racing car have just passed Day for position, as the #42 Stellar Audi was given a ten second stop and hold for their incorrectly timed pit stop. That dropped the Audi back both on track and behind the #27 car and let the #23 car reassume its P2 race position.

Eventually forcing the error from the Toyota, Day was able to take the GT4 race lead with still half an hour remaining – a position that they would never look back from as the Norfolk team and their young dup of drivers went on to secure their second race win of their inaugural GT4 season after that of Snetterton last time out.

For the Newbridge team, their race wasn’t quite over as having caught the Toyota on the final lap, they were also caught by the #42 Stellar Audi which eventually passed both for position making for a P6 overall and P3 finish in Pro-Am for the #27 crew.

With the results of Spa Francorchamps already under appeal by at least two GT3 teams after their Qualifying penalties, this race result will remain provisional as a matter of course but as those appeals do not affect any of the GT4 runners, we believe that the #27 should retain its overall GT4 Class lead going into the next round of the Championship at Brands Hatch in September.

For R-Racing, they have proved that Snetterton wasn’t a ‘get lucky’ opportunity as they have brought home a class win at the most challenging circuit that they will visit this year. Today’s result will close in their points margins to the Newbridge, Stellar, Century and Academy drivers ahead of them in the Champiosnhip.

Photo credits – Teams / Jacob Ebrey