Next weekend’s return to the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park just off the northern shores of Lake Ontario, will see the team eager to improve that position, especially with electing to forgo their latest round within the World Endurance Championship at Monza, Italy at the end of this two hour’s forty-minute race on Sunday.

Joining them at the circuit will again be the thirty-five runners of the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series for both GT4 and TCR based machinery.

At the last round just two weeks ago at the up-state New York circuit of Watkins Glen had originally seen the #64 Team TGM AMR Vantage GT4 of Ted Giovanis and Owen Trinkler claim a magnificent third overall at the end of a heavily weather affected race only for their car to fail post-race technical inspection that demoted both them and the #88 Archangel AMR Vantage GT4 of Todd Coleman and Billy Johnson (for the similar non-homologation issues) to the bottom of the timing results leaving just the #009 Stoner Car Care AMR of Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi the sole winners of silverware within the then five strong Aston Martin contingent.

With this weekend also seeing the return of the supporting VP Racing Sportscar Challenge Series for the first since the second round of the main IMSA championship at Sebring, the names of Vantage GT4 cars again change as both the #44 Accelerating Performance and Archangel AMR Vantage GT4’s also participate within both the solo driven Sportscar Challenge (GSX Class) and two driver Michelin Pilot Challenge (GS Class) races for both Moisey Uretsky/Michael Cooper and Todd Coleman/Kyle Marcelli respectively. Whilst the Stoner Car again skips out of the Series, the tally is again made up of both the #46 Team TGM cars of Hugh/Matt Plumb as well as the #19 Van Der Steur car of Rory Van Der Steur and Austin McCusker.

The #19 VDS driver crew paid homage on track to those within the garage who rebuilt their car following its Detroit accident just in time to participate within the earlier track sessions of the Watkins Glen round to Qualify third and finish sixth overall for their efforts. The #46 crew would finish close behind in nineth.

Whilst the Michelin Pilot Challenge race remains at it usual two-hour duration, the Sportscar Challenge crews will again be running two forty-five-minute races over the weekend for their twenty-eight strong grid.

Photo credits – Series / Teams / J Price

As usual, Saturday and Sunday will be punctuated by each of the Championship’s solo sprint races for the amateur driver as well as a longer endurance (with compulsory pit stop) race later in the day per day.

Having skipped the Championship last year, Guess has certainly come back in fighting spirit in the races so far – usually securing a class podium finish per race to maintain their championship momentum.

Rounding off #TeamAMR’s racing commitments this weekend appears to be the return to track action for the Malaysian based Viper Niza Racing team as Douglas Khoo and Domonic Ang get trackside again with their Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 at a very bespoke coastal street circuit in Thailand.

Perhaps ever so slightly comparative to Surfers Paradise in Australia, the Bangsaen Grand Prix event features a tight and twisty circuit layout with a paddock backing directly onto the local beach – extremely enticing we are sure considering the high ambient and high humidity levels there at the moment.

Two races per weekend, this event is the third of the Thailand Super Series so far this season after two consecutive rounds around the Chang International in Buriram earlier in April/May. Having had to rebuild their Vantage GT3 ahead of the opening round (from damage sustained within the Asian Le Mans Series), two sixth place class finishes sees the #65 Pro-Am crew sit P11 overall within the GT3 class going into this event.

Photo credits – Team / Series

Having endured something rapidly approaching a total nightmare so far this season which saw the destruction of one car at the Spa 24 Hour test last month and then fire damage to their replacement on at the Paul Ricard round after that, the #33 car’s regular squad of drivers Romain Leroux, Jeff Kingsley and Jacob Riegel will just want to be still circulating at the end of this weekend’s 24-hour event if nothing else.

Being part of the series Silver class, the distinctly liveried black and red Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 will also be driven by Ruben Del Sarte who joins the squad off the back of his GT4 European Series driver duties that he has this weekend with the #5 Mirage Racing car of Jamie Day.

Seventy cars are listed for this weekend’s event, each spread about the available Pro, Pro-Am, Silver, Gold and Bronze classes with the #33 crew helping to make up a ten strong silver class.

Specific details as to the driver grading and classes found within the GT World Challenge Endurance Cup Series can be found via https://www.crowdstrike24hoursofspa.com/news/2584/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-2023-crowdstrike-24-hours-of-spa?filter_on_24_site=1&filter_language_id=1&filter_team_news=0

The first track activity of the event has already concluded today with the running of the Bronze driver test as the teams and drivers now look forward to tomorrows extraordinary parade from the circuit and into the Spa city centre before over five hours of track time is available on Thursday for Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying, Qualifying and night practice.

Friday then sees the conclusion of the Qualifying process with Super Pole before final warm on Friday evening before the main event is waved off at 16:30hrs local on Saturday afternoon.

Photo credits – Team / GTWCE

Working through the provisional entry list of a series record breaking six two entries, Spa will see the following full season entries.

#5 Mirage Racing – Ruben Del Sarte / Jamie Day

#7 Mirage Racing – Roman Carton / Louis Meric

#18 Team Racing Spirit – Lorenz Stegman / Markus Lungstrass

#19 Racing One – Andreas Bachman / Jessica Bachman

#25 JSB Competition – Florien Briche / Julien Briche

#26 Racing Spirit of Leman – Akhil Rabindra / Rodrique Gillion

#48 GPA Racing – Bailey Voisin / TBC

#72 GPA Racing – Kevin Jimenez / Florent Grizaud

#74 Racing Spirit of Leman – Victor Weyrich / Konstantin Lachenauer

#89 AGS Events Racing – Mike Parisy / Nicolas Gomar

#98 AGS Events Racing – Timothe Buret / Vincent Bouteiller

On top of these, we will also see the return of the #27 Newbridge Motorsport Aston Martin, now fully repaired after its Monza accident with Alex Denning. The UK team has faced other strife as well as the car in the intervening period as having missed Paul Ricard, Matt Topham has realigned himself back to the British GT Championship – this time within a McLaren GT3. 

Since then, former GT4 European Series AMR racer Gus Bowers has confirmed his seat within the team (at least for Spa at least) but also that Denning has appeared to also fall be the wayside with Asian based racer Liu Lic Ka taking his seat too but still within the Pro-Am class.

The final AMR entry is another Racing One team prepared (and can only be assumed as a guesting one) and they provide a car for American drivers Andy Lee and Todd Parriott within their #9 car. Lee is obviously well known to most as he partners Elias Sabo within the #8 Flying Lizard AMR that they run within the parallel GT4 America Series.

Other issues sees Ruben Del Sarte take the place of Rory Van der Steur within the #5 Mirage car as well as Bailey Voisin was co-driverless again after his original GPA Racing driver parted company with the team but will this time be joined by FFSA GT4 racer Tom Verdier.

Private testing gets underway at the circuit tomorrow before the officially timed sessions of Free Practice on Thursday. As usual, the series will run a two one-hour race programme with race one on Friday and Race 2 on Saturday.

Also time out at Paul Ricard saw podium success from both the #72 GPA Racing crew as well as the #74 Racing Spirit of Leman crew so success after the challenges of Spa Francorchamps will be high upon the agenda of most this weekend.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

Having driven so well around the tighter circuit of Oulton Park last time out, the chameleon liveried Vulcan of Gleb Stepanov and Stephen Tomkins were hoping for much of the same this time round after the Qualified their car in second whilst the returning Stuart Hall (with Peter Montague) did likewise, fourth in class.

The first race for the Van Der Steur team was however, to rebuild their #19 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 after that chassis was written off after a robust interaction with a BMW M4 GT4 contender last time out a Detroit. A new chassis was eventually sourced by the team leaving them just enough time to deliver it to circuit for their drivers (Rory Van Der Steur and Austin McCusker) to shake down during the preliminary sessions.

We also welcomed back the #009 Stoner Car Care Aston from the Automatic Racing team with drivers Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi venturing something of a differing pathway this season, dipping in and out of the IMSA series now as they see fit with the remainder of the AMR powered grid again being taken up by the two Team AGM cars of Hugh/Matt Plumb (#46) with Ted Giovanis and Owen Trinkler (#64) alongside the #88 Archangel prepared car of Todd Coleman and Billy Johnson.

Within the red flag shortened Qualifying session on Friday and despite many TCR cars clocking laps faster than their GS class peers, it would be a great display from the AMR runners with the #46 TGM car finishing highest in P2, the #19 Van Der Steur next in P3 with the #009 Automatic car a very credible P9 ahead of what was being scheduled as another two-hour affair. Both the #64 and #88 cars got caught out by the incidents on track at the time, leaving them back in P15 and P16 respectively in class.

Come Saturday afternoon and (as predicted), the heavens opened which delayed the start still further after earlier delays on track but once underway the old adage of rain being the great equaliser again proved its point.

What happened next on track is now only our regret in not being around to see but somehow the #64 Team TGM car turned things about once Giovanis had handed over to Trinkler to the end. Cycling through the field for what was still a highly caution affected race with six periods of intervention – all at least 15 minutes long, saw the #64 car take (on track) the chequered flag to finish what appeared to be P3 overall.

Despite visiting the podium for the usual celebrations and whilst timing results were adjusted on-line, there appeared to be little understanding of the race results being adjusted for post-race technicalities. Eventually the news broke that both the #64 and #88 cars had been removed from the results for post-race infringements with their cars leaving the #19 car the highest placed finisher in P6 for a well-deserved boost of championship points for their efforts.

The #009 Automatic crew also had cause to celebrate as their P11 in class finish was enough to secure them the Bronze Cup win with the #64 being the last of the Aston Martin finishers in P9.

The next stop for the series will be from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in just over two weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

At Oschersleben, the team also suffered from technical woe across all four cars before their reigning series champions, Mike David-Ortmann and Hugo Sasse finally came away with a race win in the second race.

In-between rounds, the team’s #19 crew has also been swapped out as brother and sister line up Andreas and Jessica Bachman have been replaced with former series champion in Ricardo Van Der Ende with Benjamin Lessennes. Other than that, all was constant as Fabienne Wohlwend again partnered Celia Martin in the #13 car with Yevgen Sokolovskiy again racing with Damon Surzyshyn within their Trophy classed #48 car with Theo Nouet and Ben Dorr again in the #007 Doer AMR Vantage.

Fridays Qualifying saw a solid start from both the #1 and #19 cars as Ortmann secured a second row start with Lessennes in P9 after his first run within the Aston Martin. However, with Qualifying being one thing and racing another, the BoP afforded to the AMR Vantage GT4 this year across the board is simply ‘not what it used to be’ leaving the young Germans a hard hour-long battle to secure a P4 finish with the #19 crew rounding off their debut race together in P10.

Sunday’s second race fell on much of the same level with the Aston runners never having the ‘legs’ underneath them to contest for position at the front of the twenty-seven strong grid, although Van Der Ende did string a lap together around his local circuit to claim a P3 start.

Eventually finish P5 (for the #1 car) and P6 (for the #19 car), these were again the pick of the crop as the #007 Doer car struggled all weekend within the midfield – likewise within the all- female #13 car who’s best result was P18 in race 1.

These results see the #1 car slip to P4 within the overall driver’s championship table but with the debuting #19 car crew moving up to P13 after two good opening races.

The next round of the season will be from the Nurburgring at the start of August.

Photo credits - Series

The #50 MKH Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 of Peter Montague and (then Dan Brown) faired equally well at Oulton Park despite regular co-driver Stuart Hall was otherwise detained racing historic in Europe, as they came home for another class podium in third.

Despite that result, the crew have now lost ground within the overall Drivers Championship table having dropped to fifth overall and second within their GT4 class to the Vulcan’s Venture Innovations Mercedes AMG GT4 teammates!

Saturday’s race will be waved off at 14:30hrs local and again will be streamed live via the BEC’s social media channels.

Photo credits - Save Jackman (Eat my Pixels) / Social media

 

 

Apart from the race 1 / turn 1 incident for the #1 car, most of the issues were technical which saw the #7 Doer car of Ben Dorr and Theo Nouet fail to start race 2 at all with also a race 1 DNF for the late Prosport line up of Yevgen Sokolovskiy and Damon Surzyshyn.

Brother and sister pairing of Jessica and Andreas Bachman suffered the most with two technical related DNF’s across the opening weekend. The Prosport Racing issues were further compound by a road traffic accident with their transporter and the way back to base from Oschersleben that left their attending crew in hospital and all four cars damaged within.

Prior to last weekend’s NLS 4 race around the Nordschleife, the team did confirm that all four of their ADAC GT4 Germany stock completed a successful post incident shakedown test aided by Celia Martin who partners Fabienne Wohlwend aboard the #13 car.

Hopefully the characteristics of the twisting Dutch coastal circuit will benefit the Vantage GT4 this time around.

### UPDATE ###

Today (Thursday 22nd June) Prosport Racing have posted that drivers Ricardo van der Ende and Benjamin Lessennes will be racing their #19 car this weekend at Zandvoort instead of Jessica and Andreas Bachman.

Full season entries from the Heart of Racing team obviously make a return to racing duty with their two AMR Vantage GTD’s for both Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas in the #23 GTD Pro car as well as the #27 GTD car of Roman De Angelis, Marco Sorenson and (being an Endurance round) Ian James for the first track action since their Le Mans 24Hr AMR Vantage GTE debut earlier this month.

They in turn will be again joined by the #44 Magnus Racing AMR of John Potter, Andy Lally and Spencer Pumpelly within a combined line up of 57 cars across all five classes of the Championship.

After a difficult round last time out in California, the #23 crew slip down to P5 in the GTD Pro table whilst the #27 car presently sits in P3 within the GTD class but within the GTD only Endurance Cup table, the #27 car sits three points clear at the top with the #44 Magnus crew just six points behind in P3, so all is still to race for.

They in turn will be joined by five AMR Vantage GT4’s competing within this weekend’s fifth round of the season so far. Having gone something off piste last time out with a true street circuit configuration in Detroit, that experience proved expensive for the #19 Van Der Steur pairing of Rory Van Der Steur and Austin McCusker after the #19 was effectively taken out (and later confirmed as written off) by an errant BMW M4 GT4 going into the tight hairpin configuration.

With a new chassis being delivered to them this week, the team may – may not have time to prepare that car in time for the start of track activity on Thursday.

They (hopefully) will be joined by the pair of Team TGM Aston Martins after they too had a torrid day out around the streets of Detroit with first the #64 car of Ted Giovanis (with Owen Trinkler) damaging its front suspension/steering in the opening laps to that race with both High and Matt Plumb also struggling against the greater BoP’d cars around them.

The green #88 Archangel Aston of Todd Coleman and Billy Johnson also return to the IMSA after the Coleman walked away in disgust from the SRO America Series due to the penalties applied to his Pro driver and we also see the return of the #09 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin from the Automatic Racing team as drivers Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi continue to dip a racing boot in and out of various race programmes this season.

This weekend’s two-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race is due to start at 15:45hrs (local) on Saturday with the Six Hours of the Glen IMSA race at 10:40 hrs (local) on Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / Jamey Price Photo