Another tough GT4 European meeting brings slight reward for two AMR powered crews

Another two frantic races from the GT4 European Series from Hockenheim this weekend saw little reward for the eight Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews amongst another healthy and highly competitive grid of fifty-one runners.

High temperatures and blistering sunshine this time around produced a differing set of considerations for the teams and drivers to make after the cooler temperatures and precipitation of the last round at Spa Francorchamps three weeks ago as tyre management again became the focus of their attention.

Saturday’s opening race saw Roberto Faria become the highest qualifying AMR driver in P6 within his (and Baudouin Detout’s) #39 Racing Spirit of Leman car with the sister #82 car of Mateo Villagomez (and Jamie Day) down in P10/

Unfortunately, their joint sister #74 car of Alexandre Machado (and Kevin Kullmann) didn’t see much of the opening race here either, following on from his Spa qualifying accident that sidelined the car for the entire round, as contact was made going into turn one for the first time that put paid to both their efforts.

With all the Aston’s looking slow compared to certainly the BMW’s, Ford’s and Alpine’s, early place losses were inevitable for all the AMR crews as the race eventually settled into a natural rhythm. The #100 Prosport Racing AMR of Fabio Rauer (with Henrik Still) was another early casualty as he slowed and stopped off track at T16, something that he and another car stopping brought out the Safety Car just ahead of the pit stop window.

Despite recovering somewhat from early race place losses, the #39 car of Faria would also not make the opening pit window after damage received from unseen contact with another car left them with no further to go in pit lane whilst the #5 Mirage Racing AMR of Josh Miller and Ruben Del Sarte saw them penalised with a revisit to pit lane for a too short a minimum pit stop time.

With all the stops over, the #84 RSLM car of Day was now the highest placed AMR in P8 although the #72 GPA Racing AMR of Florent Grizaud and Kevin Jimenez were hanging onto P3 in class within their Am class and with the #7 Mirage Racing Pro-Am entry of Stanislav Safronov and Aleksandre Vaintrub now P3 in theirs.

Another FCY and resulting Safety Car brought all the cars back together again with just 15 minutes of the hour-long race remaining for another frantic dash to the flag but as the laps countered off, tyres started to hinder some as the race eventually finished to another BMW powered win. The #82 car eventually finished P8 overall but whilst the #7 car hung on to take P2 in Pro-Am, the #72 GPA Racing car eventually finished third in theirs.

Sunday’s second race was very much of the same ilk as the Alpines, BMW’s and Ford’s raced off out front to leave the Aston Martins dicing to be the best of the rest again.

The #100 Prosport car of Still hadn’t got off to the best of starts having been consigned to the back of the grid but that would get even worse when the car again had to pull over out of the race with technical issues just after the halfway point for a double DNF.

Others, like the #82 RSLM were having to work very hard for their money just to remain in contention as there were some clearly faster cars out there than the Vantage GT4. A lengthy Safety Car period for two cars going off within the opening five minutes helped to manage tyre longevity at the expense of a thrilling first half of the race with the mainly faster drivers aboard.

The #5 Mirage car would again be in the wars as contact either side of the pit window saw firstly Miller lose ground before secondary contact that would see Del Sarte penalised for causing a collision before retiring themselves from the race as a result.

Another late Safety Car again brought the pack together with just ten minutes to go, but again, the Aston simply didn’t have the pace to compete with the brands ahead as any hopes of a podium finish within the silver class needing nothing short of a minor miracle with the #72 GPA crews hope of another class podium also being spun around at the hairpin and the #39 RSLM again in the wars with frontal damage.

At the flag, the only AMR crew celebrating were the #7 Mirage Racing Pro-Am crew of Safronov and Vaintrub as a last lap lunge earned them a class win to add to their P2 finish of Saturday to help elongate their championship lead.

The series now takes a few weeks off before their penultimate round of the season from Monza in late September before concluding in Saudi Arabia in late November.

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