Championships earned over the weekend

Monday, October 23, 2023

It was to be another Championship winning weekend as two Aston Martin Racing powered crews finally claimed their coveted titles after another season of highly competitive European based motorsport with their Vantage GT3 and GT4 machinery.

In Germany, the #1 Prosport Racing Vantage GT4 entry of Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse made something of championship history as they retained their overall ADAC GT4 Germany crown with the same line up, car and team as they did last season.

Entering the final round of six round season at Hockenheim, the #1 crew retained a sizeable forty-three-point lead within the Driver’s Championship so only a catastrophic disaster would have stood in their way.

Unphased by that pressure, the #1 duo managed to get the job done by the end of Saturday’s opening race where they converted a pole position start into a P6 finish, enough points to seal the deal with one race remaining. Not being satisfied with that, they then Qualified again on the front row to round the season off with yet another podium finish in P3 to see their year out very much on a high.

However, despite their dominance on track, the team failed to win the Team’s Championship title, eventually finishing second to the Avia W&S Motorsport team by just thirteen points.

Then in Portugal, the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman crew of Arnold Robin and Valentin Hasse-Clot managed to claim the top honour within the Michelin Le Mans Cup Series as the French duo toughed it out around the rain soaked Autodromo do Algarve circuit to claim the GT3 title.

Having already experienced varying track conditions throughout the weekend thanks to their dual European Le Mans Series endeavours, Robin was still able to Qualify his car third in class despite the deluge that interrupted that session.

An early Sunday morning start behind the Safety Car (thanks to the latest weather system that passed the circuit by) saw the forty-car grid eventually take up the pace under some atrocious conditions with Arnold again completing the opening stint at very much a conservative pace.

Handing over the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 to Hasse-Clot for the closing stint, the weather again closed in bringing out the red flag with just over the ninety minutes completed. That would soon be called the result with the #10 finishing the race in second, enough for them to also claim the GT3 Driver’s title by twenty points from the #51 Ferrari winning the GT3 Team’s title by the same margin too.