Competing within a diverse grid of twenty-eight cars, the #44 car eventually came home nine laps ahead of their nearest rival around the three mile circuit and despite cockpits hitting one hundred degrees at the height of the day.

Despite the fun, there will obviously be lessons there to be learned as the team look forward to their next endurance round of the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Champiosnhip.

Photo credits – Chen Media

The main IMSA series sees all five classes return for this round after the GTD only round from Lime Rock Park where the two Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD’s took both overall (GTD Pro) and class wins (GTD) between them but at the cost of sadly another DNF for the returning Andretti Autosport Aston.

This weekend sees all three AMR’s return for this weekend’s two hour’s forty-minute race starting on Sunday morning (local time) with both #23 Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas and #27 Roman De Angelis/Marco Sorenson all eager as mustard to get back into the point winning ways having each maxed out in upstate New York, closing the deficit in their respective championships to those in front.

For the #94 Andretti car of Jarret Andretti and Gabby Chaves, it will be a case of third time lucky having suffered similar fates in both opening IMSA visits so far at both Lime Rock and before that at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Whilst the Michelin Pilot Challenge skipped Lime Rock Park completely two weeks ago, it returns this weekend back into its usual state with both GS and TCR classed cars competing within the scheduled forty-six car entry and with six Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered crews competing within the twenty-four strong GS class.

The usual suspects from Van der Steur (#19 Rory Van Der Steur/Austin McCusker), Team TGM with both (#46 Hugh/Matt Plumb) and (#64 Ted Giovanis/Owen Trinkler), the #44 Accelerating Performance AMR of Moisey Uretsky/Michael Cooper and the #88 Archangel Aston Martin of Todd Coleman/Billy Johnson all return for another two hour round but will this time be re-joined again by the #09 Automatic Stoner Car Care entry of Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi.

The Stoner crew returned to the IMSA series at Lime Rock for their first race within the VP Fuels Sportscar Challenge Series where Ecklin came away with a brace of Bronze Cup trophies for his efforts.

This series two-hour race starts later at 15.55hrs local.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / J Price

 

 

The Spanish squad worked through the paid test sessions and free practice sessions ahead of qualifying. Romain undoubtedly had the most challenging task as the heavens opened just ahead of his 15-minute session. While some hit trouble, he impressed with the second fastest time. Next up was Jeff, in more conventional wet conditions, while a dry line was forming as Jabob took to the circuit to set the fifth-best time in the class.

Starting seventh, Romain found himself in a Silver sandwich early on but was soon able to make progress as he passed the #56 on track with the #26 Audi close behind. The latter battle would continue for much of the race as he worked his way to P5 at the end of his stint.

Jeff was next up and mighty quick too on the fresh Pirellis out of the box. His initial gains were compromised as the #26 used a long first stint to gain track position, and then the Canadian racer got caught up behind the #31 WRT entry. Once clear on lap 50, he pulled a margin before pitting eight laps later. Jacob was charged with the third and final stint, quickly recording the best lap of the race and resuming the race with the #26.

Having passed traffic, he closed in and made the move for what would become fourth position on lap 72. Caught out slightly with the Audi slowing somewhat unexpectedly at turn three, there was light contact, but the pass was completed.

From that point, it was a case of ensuring the finish, albeit with a five-second time penalty for that contact. He duly completed the 91st and final lap to take the chequered flag.

The result underlines the ongoing gains the Bullitt Racing team are making in a very competitive race environment. The final race of the season takes place in Barcelona in late September, and it would be most fitting to wrap up the season with some Silverware on home turf.

Source material - Bullitt Racing

Again running solo from the usual trilogy of SRO America sanctioned series, the bronze driver only series will see three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s compete around the tight and twisty road circuit with each of Ross Chouest, Jason Bell and Gray Newell placed within the top four of the GT4 Driver Championship going into this round.

Starting the fifty-minute race, Guess appeared to be well in control of the situation as the then twenty multi-class cars took the start, rounded Copse and headed up into the Maggotts/Becketts complex before the camera view cut to look back up the Hanger Straight from Stowe Corner.

In the background, you just saw both the #82 and #78 Paddock Motorsport McLaren Artura straight-line themselves out of Chapel and head (out of shot) into the tyre protected barrier just before the Hanger Straight Bridge. The race then went straight under the control of the Safety Car as circuit marshals rushed to deal with the situation on track.

Although the team would later confirm with us that Guess was battered and bruised but otherwise OK, the same could not be said for their Vantage GT4 which visibly displayed the signs of extensive front and rear end damage, with the car being later withdrawn from the remainder of the fifth round.

Passing on their appreciation to the track marshals and medical staff at the circuit, the team confirmed that the #82 car would return in time for the penultimate round of the season at Donington Park in mid-September.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

 

 

 

Earlier this week posting renders of their new green themed Aston Martin, those picture (as well as those subsequently revealed by the team) give little away in terms of potential series identifiers other than that of Pirelli, but it is most likely that at least one of their racing programmes will be within their domestic Italian GT Championship.

Way back in April, when AMR revealed their latest intake of young drivers within their Academy Driver programme, the team was listed then alongside young driver Giovanni Maschio as competing this season within that domestic series. 

Obviously, things may have changed in terms of driver, but the Lazarus/AMR link has now been confirmed. The next round of the Italian GT Series will be at Monza in early September and (if true) will be the first new Vantage GT3 within the series since the Solaris V12 effort back in 2016.

The rest is yet to be confirmed.

Photo credits - Team

This weekend’s round in Germany will be the fourth of the Endurance Series so far after events at both Monza and Paul Ricard before that of the Spa 24. This weekend’s entry list sees no change within the #33 camp as the team competes against a Silver Cup class of eight amongst another sizeable grid of fifty-three cars.

Today’s two private test sessions saw fifty-one of those cars run with the #33 Bullitt Racing car P19 overall (P2 in class after this morning’s cooler and damper session) before seeing the day out P50 (P7 in class) by the end of the second session.

Tomorrow will see the ninety-minute Free Practice session run in the morning ahead of the ninety minute pre-Qualifying session over midday before Qualifying itself on Sunday morning and the start to the three hour race at 14:45Hrs local.

Photo credits – Team /Series

With just a 34.5-point deficit within their overall Championship ambitions but a similar 32.5-point lead within class, these final three rounds of the season will obviously determine whether the red, white and blue liveried Aston Martin will be the pick of the crop come the final race of the season from Snetterton later in early October.

This weekend’s entry list sees for another twenty-two car, multi-class entry with the #82 Feathers AMR being one of seven GTH Classed cars being entered with themselves and the #14 Greystone McLaren 570s being the only non-Mercedes AMG GT4 platform again. 

Sometimes it’s better to be different!!

The race programme will see Free Practice and Qualifying take place on Saturday morning ahead of the first sprint (solo driving for Guess) and first pit stop race for all before the same is mirrored again on Sunday.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Going straight into Qualifying with a time worthy of P6 out of the twelve strong grid, the #189 sadly didn’t make much more than half distance before strife struck the car down for a DNF result.

That however was in contract to the performance of Rob Ecklin and his #09 Stoner Car Care AMR Vantage GT4 in his race debut VP Fuels Sportscar Challenge from Lime Rock Park in upstate New York at the weekend.

Having dipped in and out of the Michelin Pilot Challenge series as well as the World Racing League Series this year, this twin race event (the fourth of the season so far) was the first for Ecklin as well (as the sole AMR Vantage entrant this time around) but he did come away with two Bronze Cup trophy P2 and P1 finishes with his GSX classed entry.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / Social media

Having raced solo within the series last season, Bachman has this year teamed up with Jetcraft owner and team backer Fazal Karim aboard their GT3 after he spent last year learning the cars and the circuits aboard the teams Vantage GT4 alongside Darras.

This year, Fazal Karim’s son Jayan joins the series mix, again under the tutor ledge of Darras at only his second race meeting of the year having debuted at Portimao at the end of April and having missed the second round of the season from Spa Francorchamps.

Whilst the GT Open Series is out again at the Red Bull Ring in early September, the GT Cup Open Series will not be out again until the Monza round at the end of September.

Photo credits - Series

Yesterday’s Qualifying had already seen the R-Racing #23 AMR Vantage GT4 crew of Seb Hopkins and Josh Miller grab all the headlines with a faultless build up and runs during the two GT4 Qualifying sessions to secure class Pole Position ahead of today’s race whilst the #77 Enduro Motorsport of Matt Topham and Marcus Clutton saw their P5 starting position in GT3 was later changed with a 5-place grid penalty for accruing three behaviour warning points. The #97 Beechdean AMR of Andrew Howard and Nikki Thiim would be starting from P8.

With the intensity of the sun over the circuit increasing ahead of the early afternoon start, it was Andrew Howard who remained one of the coolest of all as he quickly made up for lost ground during Qualifying to place his #97 into P6 during the opening corners in what was, an incident free opening couple of laps.

Whilst the #23 car of Miller quickly got into a routine of the free air ahead of them to the GT3 field now breaking away, all of the action was within the top half of the GT3 field as the Howard entered into a three-way battle for P4 but in doing so, allowed the group behind (now including Topham in the #77) to catch up.

Just ten minutes in and the first Safety Car was required to extract an errant BMW GT4 from the gravel and that allowed the grid the opportunity to make their first of three compulsory stops for fuel and tyres (if needed) plus a driver change. All three Aston Martins elected to do this, sacrificing immediate track position under caution rather than potentially having to do it later under racing conditions.

Whilst the GT3’s soon made up for lost ground to the GT4 field that didn’t stop, it soon became apparent that the #23 was now on course with a three-way battle with both Academy Ford Mustangs as they continued to run up ahead whilst the #23 had dropped to P7.

Thirty minutes in and another Safety Car was required as an ailing McLaren GT4 first parked itself on the track side before catching fire within the engine bay. That incident (although off circuit itself) would be a lengthy one before the race went back to green some thirty minutes later and with many cars pitting again during that caution, the #77 Endura AMR was now ahead of the #97 Beechdean in P4 and P6 respectively.

As far as the Aston Martins race fortunes went, that was about that far as whilst we watched Topham racing the #4 Two Seas Mercedes around the outside for track position we missed an indent involving the #97 car of Howard having contact with a Ginetta GT4 causing them race ending suspension damage for their efforts. Also, the #77 car of Topham would soon be in the wars itself as contact was made with the #13 McLaren, spinning the McLaren around and losing the front near side fender off the #77 car.

Back in GT4, the #23 was busy in its dice with the two Mustangs but had dropped to P5 on track again due to two other cars ahead yet to make their second stop.

Reaching the halfway mark and Topham was feeling very racy aboard his Vantage GT3 for the first time as he was prepared to take on John Fergusson’s Ram Mercedes AMG for what was then P3 and eventually his perseverance paid off.

Moving into the final hour and all was looking good for the remaining two Aston Martins as the #23 had just re-inherited the class lead again as well as the #77 having also made their final stop to come out in P7 – or so we thought!

Firstly, the #77 was given a drive through penalty for track limits and in serving that Clutton would drop to P11 but worse was still to come as Hopkins, chasing the leading BMW GT4, hit the rear of the #55 Ginetta causing them to spin and his car to suffer from steering/suspension related issues with just fifteen minutes to go. 

Re-joining and finishing the race in P6, a later post-race time penalty for that contact with the #55 would cost the R-Racing crew another 72 seconds in time and that would finish their Portimao adventure down in P7.

The Championship now enjoys a summer break ahead of its penultimate round from Brands Hatch in early September.

Photo credits – Team / Jacob Ebrey / D Gibson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time avoiding the rain, the #47 AMR Vantage GT3 of Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii would finish the early private testing sessions mid table with a best lap time of just under one second to the then pace setting Mercedes AMG GT3.

Going into the weekend’s more formally timed Free Practice sessions however, saw that gap increase to just over two seconds although their ultimate finishing position within their class improved. Next up would be the two Qualifying sessions with Hoshino out for Race 1 and Fujii for Race 2 but there would be no front of the pack relief for the crew this time around as early contact from a Porsche behind would hamper their opening stint in race 1 having started from P23.

Eventually finishing still further down the order than what they are used to, their P11 in GT3 Pro-Am finish was still worthy of a P3 finish in their overall target of the GT3 Japan Cup.

Sunday’s second race went much the same way but with Fujii able to consolidate his starting position of P15 until the pit stop window at halfway despite further contact and a half spin caused by the car behind. Further progress was made during the second half of the race for the #47 crew able to finish P8 in their class – and for an improved P2 finish in the GT3 Japan Cup.

Despite these finishes, the D’Station Racing crew have slipped back slightly within their favoured Japan Cup class as the series takes a few weeks off before its next round at Okayama towards the end of August.

Photo credits – Team / Series