Both new Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3 crews all set for tomorrows ELMS opener from Barcelona

Of course, things didn’t exactly start too smoothly as first the Racing Spirit of Leman team had to wait for the Comtoyou Racing team to hand their car back to them after the Belgium team had used that car at the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe Series at Paul Ricard, and then the Grid Motorsport by TF was reliant upon the Comtoyou Racing team for a spare chassis after their #97 car was damaged on the opening day of the preceding Prologue Test.

Competing within a new for 2024 LMGT3 class of eleven cars within a combined LMP2, LMP3 and GT3 grid of forty-three cars, both #59 Racing Spirit of Leman car of Derek DeBoer, Casper Stevenson and Valentin Hasse-Clot alongside the #97 Grid Motorsport by TF AMR of Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Jonny Adam ended the first Free Practice session down in P9 and P10 before ending that Free Practice process in P4 for the #59 car and P9 for the #97.

Next was the Qualifying session for which the #59 RSoL car of DeBoer had to sit and wait a minute with a one-minute stop and hold at the beginning of that session having been found guilty of crossing the pit entry white line during the earlier session.

One top of that, the American would have it last flying lap deleted for track limits, eventually finishing P9 in class for tomorrow’s four-hour opener. The #97 car of Berry would, however, would fair slightly better – even with a lap of his own being deleted with a P6 start on the grid tomorrow morning.

And …….. the cars look brilliant even if one isn’t the one that TF Sport quite had in mind!!

Photo credits – Teams / social media