A dwindling eight Aston Martin Vantage GT4s expected at this weekends European Series visit to Hockenheim

Thursday, August 31, 2023

The six-week summer break is finally over for the GT4 European Series as they congregate back together again this weekend for what will incredibly be their penultimate round of the season from the Hockenheim circuit in Germany.

Last out at a sweltering Misano circuit in Italy, may of the forty-six mixed class crews expected this weekend have spent that time either relaxing or indeed honing their race skills in other series.

What is sadly obvious however from looking at the provisional entry list published by the series earlier this week, it the distinct decline again in Aston Martin Racing powered crews to a point where we expect to see just eight AMR Vantage GT4 crews this weekend compared to the fourteen that attended the opening round of the season at Monza in late April.

Omissions in the entry list since the Misano round see the #7 Mirage Racing entry of Romain Carton and Louis Meric not returning together with the final AGS Events Racing car of Nicolas Gomar and Mike Parisy. We had already seen that team hit an AMR powered decrease in numbers over the rounds this season with the #98 car missing Misano as well, that together with the news of team securing new Ligier JS2 machinery having previously tried to sell all of their AMR stock leads you to your own conclusions!

That being said, eight cars is still very much a healthy entry with the remaining #5 Mirage Racing entry of Jamie Day/Ruben Del Sarte joining the two from the Racing One/Team Spirt Racing stable of #19 Andreas and Jessica Bachman and #18 Lorenz Stegmann/Markus Lungstrass respectively, with the two from each of the GPA Racing and Racing Spirit of Leman stables for Bailey Voisin/Emil Heyerdahl and Kevin Jimenez/Florent Grizaud and Akhil Rabindra/Rodrigue Gillion and Victor Weyrich/Matteo Villagomez. The #24 JSB competition crew of Julien and Florian Briche complete the AMR line up.

Whilst the heat of Misano was difficult to contend with for all involved, it did not come without reward for some of the AMR crews with both the Pro-Am classed #18 Team Racing Spirit crew claiming third in class with the #72 Am classed GPA Racing crew also claiming P2 after Saturdays opener. Sundays race wasn’t quite as fruitful however…….!!!

Championship wise, there isn’t too much to cheer for going into both this and the final round of the year at Barcelona at the end of September as the Vantage GT4 hasn’t exactly been too well blessed this season when it comes to BoP with the highest placed AMR crews per class sitting at least seventy points in arrears to their class rivals with just 100 points remaining on offer.

Tomorrow will see the first track sessions of the GT4 European weekend with both Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying ahead of Qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday with the reverse driver second le on Sunday.

It should be fast – it will probably be eventful so who know!!!!!

Photo credits – Team / Series