Two Aston Martin Racing LMGT3 crews now all set for Spa 6Hrs tomorrow
Friday, May 10, 2024
Despite having persistent rain at the circuit in the build-up to this weekends event, the weather had so far been glorious and that is the forecast again for tomorrows six-hour race – but Spa being Spa, absolutely anything could happen!
As per previous rounds of the Championship so far, just the #27 Heart of Racing and #777 D’Station Racing teams represent the Aston Martin Racing brand within the WEC as full season entries as driver crews Ian James, Alex Riberas, Daniel Mancinelli and Clement Mateu, Erwan Bastard and Marco Sorenson (respectively) each looked towards Spa to consolidate their Champiosnhip positions after their mixed bag of results from the previous round at Imola and their podium winning results at the season opener in Qatar.
With so many new factors determining this season’s LMGT3 class to that of last year’s finale for the GTE class, the earlier Free Practice sessions were all about bedding both the new Vantage LMGT3 and their new drivers (where applicable) into their optimum performance window in time for today’s Qualifying and Class Hyperpole Sessions. Mancinelli finished the three Free Practice sessions eighth fastest overall in LMGT3 after his FP1 session.
With the teams bronze drivers of James and Mateu each qualifying their respective cars this afternoon, track limits again came into play as the #777 had its best opening two laps deleted whilst James also had had all of his completed laps deleted for the same reason, leaving the #27 car still with no time set with just over three minutes remaining.
Whereas James was able to enter two last gasp laps to climb up first from last in class to P7 before rounding off the session in P4, the #777 car of Mateu was unfortunately not able to do the same as the Japanese lead squad would Qualify to tomorrows race down in P15 out of the eighteen class runners.
For James, that meant for an additional few more laps within Hyperpole within which he could try to elevate their position still further, but that session was interrupted with a nasty looking accident for the #92 Manthey PureRacing Porsche at the top of Raidillon.
With the session clock halted whilst that red flagged incident was cleared and the circuit barriers restored, that allowed the remaining nine runners just over seven minutes. Again losing another lap to track limits, the #27 Heart car would eventually claim P6 in class for tomorrow's race.
The six hours of Spa Francorchamps is due to start at 13:00hrs tomorrow and it will not disappoint!!
UPDATED
Both Aston Martins move up a grid slot after the subsequent disqualification of the #95 United Autosport McLaren for being underweight - #27 now starts P5 and the #777 P14.
