Seven Aston Martins return for next round of Endurance Cup from the Nurburgring

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Still just at their third round of a five-round season, the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup runners are back in action this weekend with a step across the border from their previous round in Belgium to this weekend’s venue at the Nurburgring.

Last time out was of course the Spa 24 where the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Matteo Drudi, Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen where in position to snatch an unexpected overall race win at the end after the race leading Ferrari was baulked in the pit lane going into their final stop.

To come first - first you must finish, and the #7 car was never too far from the front of the action to be able to grab that racing opportunity with both hands whilst the #34 Walkenhorst AMR Vantage GT3 of Ross Gunn, David Pittard and Henrique Chaves was also in contention for a podium finish before a late race penalty dropped them down the order.

Since then, we have just had the last round of the Sprint Cup Series from Hockenheim where the old saga of Balance of Performance again reared its head over last weekend when the Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin’s all received positive BoP adjustments ahead of each race which finally saw the team’s Pro car finally climb the order to where we expected it to be at amongst the multi-class grid.

Hopefully, that is all over for this weekend as seven Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s from both the Comtoyou Racing and Walkenhorst Motorsport teams help to make up the fifty strong grid for this weekend’s three-hour race.

To confirm driver line ups within those seven cars –

#7 Comtoyou (Pro) – Drudi/Thiim/Sorenson

#11 Comtoyou (Bronze) – Job Van Uitert/John De Wilde/Kobe Pauwels

#12 Comtoyou (Silver) – Esteban Muth/Nicolas Baert/Sebastian Ogaard

#21 Comtoyou (Silver) – Charles Clark/Matisse Lismont/San Dejonghe

#34 Walkenhorst (Pro) – David Pittard/Ross Gunn/Henrique Chaves

#35 Walkenhorst (Silver) – Maxime Robin/Romain Leroux/Lorcan Hanafin

#36 Walkenhorst (Bronze) – Mex Jensen/Tim Creswick/Ben Green

From an Endurance Cup perspective, the #7 Comtoyou crew presently lead the Driver’s Championship thanks to their points haul from Spa which saw them score at each of the 6/12/24hr marks of the race whilst the #34 Walkenhorst crew sit back in joint P9.

Within the Silver class, the #21 Comtoyou squad sit at the head of the three AMR crews in P8 with the #35 Walkenhorst crew in P12 whilst in the bronze class, the #11 Comtoyou crew head the pair of AMR entries in P5 whilst the #36 Walkenhorst are down in P13.

Track action begins tomorrow with private testing before more formal affairs of Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying on Saturday morning. Qualifying itself will be on Sunday morning ahead of a race start at 15:00hrs local.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media