This weeks news so far................
Monday, March 13, 2023
The International GT Open Series saw the #007 AMR Vantage GT3 from the Belgium based Street Art Racing team confirmed back for its second season but with Pascal Bachmann this time having a driving partner for the full season.
Having raced solo for as much of last season that business would allow, Bachmann will this year be partnered by their main sponsor’s (Jetcraft) owner in Jahid Fazal Karim after Karim was introduced to the GT4 class of the sister GT Open Cup Series with the team’s driver coach Julien Darras. News of a further GT4 entry within that series is also apparently imminent too.
This time around and for when business keeps one away from the circuit, the team have reached out to Xolile Letlaka from the South African GT Series as the South African looks to push out his Africa Race together Foundation. Letlaka presently races another AMR Vantage GT3 within his domestic series with the technical help of Street Art Racings Race Engineer Matty Driessen.
Next, we had a Dorr Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 testing at Sundays NLS official test ahead of the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie that starts next weekend. We don’t know the identity of the drivers, but the snow of Saturday wasn’t sufficient to detract them from what might well be another N24 commitment this season. For the locally based Prosport Team, the cancellation of Saturdays running due to the weather was enough to earn them a weekend off having had back-to-back running in Spain recently within the GT Winter Series.
Over in the GT4 European Series, the #18 Racing One AMR Vantage GT4 has taken on a differing guise and driver line up ahead of the 2023 season as Henrik Lyngbye Pederson takes a back seat and supports young gun Lorenz Stegmann a chance alongside Marcus Lungstrass in the Pro-Am Class.
That news in on top of the GPA Racing team confirming an Am Class entry for their FFSA GT4 race winners Kevin Jimenez and Florent Grizaud as well as both Victor Weyrich and Konstantin Lachenauer confirming their presence again with the Racing Spirit of Lemans team (not sure on driving partnerships just yet but a dual FFSA / GT4 European commitment from Weyrich).
In the FFSA GT4 Series itself, the Mirage Racing team also confirmed a second driver pairing with Louis Meric and Romain Carton (silver cup) racing alongside Yves Lemaitre and Vincent Beltoise already announced. Both the FFSA and GT4 European Series AMR entries are coming along nicely with at least seven Vantage GT4s apiece at the moment.
Finally today, we have seen that the Malaysian Based Viper Niza Racing team will be entering what will probably be a brand-new AMR Vantage GT3 chassis into this weekend Sepang 12Hr. Having written off their last car at the final round of the Asian Le Mans Series ay Yas Marina last month, the Douglas Khoo led team will be back with co-driver Dominic Ang again – alongside Jazeman Jaafar for what is actually an 8hour race.
Photo credits - Teams / Social Media