Another tough day at the GT World Challenge office for the seven AMRs at the Nurburgring

Next on Sunday came the individual Qualifying runs of each driver, and whilst the rains had since passed, the track was still greasy in places as the #35 Walkenhorst Silver class entry of Lorcan Hanafin found to his cost – wide out of one corner and understeering off into the tyre wall of the next for a hard hit. That cost that crew their driver timed run and hence a rear of the grid start for Sunday’s three-hour race.

Overall, though, the #7 Comtoyou Racing AMR claimed stable bragging rights with a P7 starting position, ahead of the #34 Walkenhorst crew a distant P17 but when you look at their actual combined times, just a second off a second row starting position so all was still to race for.

For two Aston Martin crews, however, their racing ended no sooner than it had begun as the #21 silver Comtoyou entry of Matisse Lismont (Charles Clark and Sam Dejonghe) collided with another car on the formation lap to give themselves a puncture and later ABS issues as well as forcing the Porsche into retirement.

Eventually getting the race underway after a second formation lap, the #7 car was fortunate to avoid a steamrollering Ferrari than came down the inside lap at an unabated rate of knots to whack squarely into the pole setting Porsche to knock them in turn into another car and into retirement but at least that moved each car behind up a place in turn. The #21 car was sadly a repeated visitor to pit lane with what was later confirmed as being ABS issues, but their sister #11 car of John De Wilde (with Kobe Pauwels and Job Van Uitert) also came into pit lane with unquantified issues – never to be seen again.

Whilst their #7 Pro crew were holding station in what was then P5, the Belgium teams #12 silver crew of Sebastian Ogaard (with Esteban Muth and Nicolas Baert) were at least having a better day – running a competitive P3 in class towards the end of Ogaard’s opening stint. Having started towards the rear of the fifty strong grid, the #35 Walkenhorst of Maxime Robin behind the wheel (with Hanafin and Romain Leroux) were also making their way up the order slowly and had elevated themselves to P38 by the end of the first half hour.

Just ahead of their first stop, the #7 car of Thiim moved up to P4 and the car ahead of them was finally penalised for their lap one collision at turn one and the Dane would hold that position until the end of his stint when he handed the car to Drudi. The #34 Walkenhorst car of Chaves, however, went longer in the hope of undercutting the stops of those ahead but to no avail at the end.

As the race settled into its second stint, the #7 car had dropped again to P7, but the #34 car of Pittard had at least caught up upon the battle ahead for P7/8th and 9th, giving the AMR factory driver at least half a chance. Muth meanwhile was continuing the #12 car’s battles within class but now second in class whilst the #35 Walkenhorst car had dropped back to P41. The teams #36 bronze class car of Tim Creswick, Mex Jensen and Ben Green was still struggling for pace however in P44.

Final stops and it was a Sorensen and Gunn Pro class dash to the flag, but Race Control had other ideas as they investigated the #7 car for an apparent unsafe release last time around. Never a reason to give up hard earned positions, this Dane also had a battle on his hands to fend off the chasing BMW behind whilst Gunn was trying everything that he could to get passed another on his out lap.

Walkenhorst then suffered a DNF of their own as their #35 car failed to return to the track after their second and final stop (unsure just why at the moment) but that meant that Hanafin would get no race time.

Eventually, Race Control called their judgement upon the #7 car and awarded them a ten second time penalty to be added to their race time. Although sounding draconian, that only dropped them one place to behind the BMW that had been chasing them for so long. That eventually gave the Championship leading crew a P5 finish on track but a P6 overall finish after the time penalty was applied to slightly extend their lead at the to of the table with the #34 car eventually coming home a disappointing P13.

The Comtoyou #12 had by then fallen off the silver class podium as well to finish a distant P6 on top of the DNF for their #11 car and a ten-lap deficit result for the hobbled #21 car. The remaining #36 Walkenhorst car finished P42 overall and P12 in bronze.

The next race of the series will be from Monza in late September.

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