TWO P3 finishes sees out the GT4 European Series for the eight AMR runners in Barcelona (UPDATED)
Sunday, October 01, 2023
In Germany, there were eight Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered crews amongst that grid and in Spain there was to be a similar number – albeit with a few additions and omissions.
The #24 JSB Competition AMR was one such car not in attendance with their car now listed for sale upon Racecarsdirect.com, but their slot was taken by a third GPA Racing crew as their FFSA GT4 Series racer Baudouin Detout partnered up with the teams driver coach (namely one Valentin Hasse-Clot) so a sampling experience of the European series ahead of a potential step-up next season.
The sister #48 GPA Racing car of Bailey Voisin also saw yet another driver change as former AGS Events Racing Louis Meric stepped aboard with the young Englishman for his fourth partner change this season for the final event.
Weather was this king kind to the series as all track time was spent under glorious sunshine although that didn’t always transfer into ultimate pace as the AMR Vantage GT4 again struggled for pace amongst its peers.
At this stage of the season, it was just the #72 GPA Racing car of Kevin Jimenez/Florent Grizaud and the #18 Team Racing Spirit car of Lorenz Stegmann and Marcus Lungstrass who had any possibility of class championship success (in Am and Pro-Am respectively) but both needed a high podium finish and poor results from those above in order to have any degree of success anyway.
Inevitably, that success did not come after Saturdays opener as the #72 eventually finished fifth in class and the #18 way down in P18. That and the fact that the #5 Mirage Racing AMR of Ruben Del Sarte and Jamie Day lost out on a P2 track position after their compulsory stop due to technical issues kind of summarised the AMR powered crews season.
Going into Sunday saw just the silver class still up for grabs but that didn’t deter any of the Aston Martin crews, especially those up ahead as they mixed it up with those carrying Champiosnhip hopes. An early safety car did help to calm matters but quickly, the #74 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR of Mateo Villagomez and Victor Weyrich were again circulating at the top in P4 whilst the #5 Mirage car had been knocked down to P12.
After the stops, the #74 was still P3 but had picked up what became a post-race time penalty of eleven seconds for too short a pits stop whilst the #5 car had made up ground and was now close behind the #74 in fourth.
Bad to worse for the #72 GPA car as Jimenez was spun around from their then P3 podium slot in Am whilst the #18 Team Racing Spirit and #39 GPA Racing crews were on course for a last lap dice in Pro-Am.
Eventually crossing the line in third, the #74 crew lost their podium position to that time penalty that allowed the #5 Mirage Racing crew to stand upon the podium for the first time together and whilst the #39 and #18 did trade places – they both finished just off the podium for their efforts in P4 and P5 in class.
Whilst the racing itself was its usually fast and furious stuff, the performances of this year’s Aston Martin Racing stock has been hampered with incident and accident along the way, not to mention the turn down of the car’s performances under the SRO’s BoP criteria.
With the regular season now over, there lies just the six hour of Vallelunga in Italy at the end of October for any SRO sanctioned series GT4 contender who fancies it.
UPDATE
A post race 30 second penalty for the #83 car lifts the #39 GPA Racing car of Hasse-Clot and Detout up to P3 IN Pro-Am to make for a second podium finish to the years final race.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
