Silverware and Championships won in final weekend of 2023 season in Europe

Monday, November 27, 2023

The final race weekend of the European theatre proved itself to be another productive one for the three Aston Martin Racing powered teams competing within the final rounds of two European series with race podiums for some and Championship wins for others.

The Iberian Supercars Series was busy at Estoril, Portugal with another thirty-four mixed class entry which this time included three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s amongst them.

The #007 Araujo Competicao Aston Martin of Alvaro Ramos and Fernando Soares were well within the championship hunt within their GTX class whilst the Racar Motorsport team this entered two Aston Martins, one within the #777 GTX class for Ruben Vaquinhas whilst the new #83 sister fielded series debutants Francisco Cruz and Pedro Perino within the GT4 Pro class.

Two Qualifying sessions on Saturday ahead of two forty-five-minute races on Sunday saw the solo driven #777 claim themselves to be the more consistent with a P3 in race and a P2 start in race 2 whereas the #007 crew only needed a couple more points with which to claim their GTX and GTC Championship prizes.

That they did after a P3 finish (in class) after the race 1 on Sunday which they backed that up with a class win later on whilst the other two Aston Martins also claimed class silverware with a P2 finish in Race 1 for the #777 and an overall P3 finish for the #83 car in the final race of the year.

Then slightly further north-east, the Racing Spirit of Leman team was back in action within the final round of the Ultimate Cup Series at the Paul Ricard Circuit in southern France.

They featured a diverse driver line in Florent Grizaud, Erwan Bastard and Derek DeBoer – all of whom were racing something, with someone, at somewhere and in a series for the first time with the team’s #10 AMR Vantage GT3 – all under the watchful eye of factory driver Valentin Hasse Clot.

Whilst the race was an opportunity with no consequence having not been full season entrants, the real news surrounding this event is perhaps still to come as DeBoer heavily indicated that this was just the first of many with the French based team.

In any case, the #10 crew did superbly well considering the amount of ‘new’ within their midst as they qualified for Sundays final four-hour round of the Endurance GT Touring Challenge event on pole position after a P2 finish each from both DeBoer and Grizaud in Q1 and Q2, backed up by a P1 time from Bastard in Q3.

Despite that, four hours around Le Castellet is a long time for anyone and that saw the #10 slip down to P5 overall by the end of the opening hour which was then maintained before going into the final hour. A great push in the final stint saw that hard work rewarded with a P3 finish overall, just over 80 seconds behind the eventual race winner.

As the 2023 race season effectively ended last weekend, it’s of course always great to end things on something of a high with some silverware and Championship achievement as the new season already beckons with news, events and opening races as early as this week in Sepang.