Another one to forget for the Comtoyou Racing after the GTWCE Sprint Cup visit to Magny-Cours

Monday, August 26, 2024

Last weekend’s GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup visit to Magny-Cours in France will surely go down as another one to forget for the Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Racing powered team after only one of their four cars was able to start race two of the weekend.

Already struggling for pace within the Balance of performance parameters set to the new 2024 AMR Vantage GT3 by the governing body, their Sprint Cup endeavours so far have nearly all been a case of ‘catch up’ to their peers but with the odd instance of inspiration from (usually) the #007 Pro class entry.

Preparing themselves for another of the events usual into the night races on Saturday, the writing was again already upon the wall for the team after the #007 car of Nicolas Baert and Mattia Drudi qualified a distant P20 overall whilst their #11 Gold class entry of Sebastian Ogaard and James Jakes was not too far behind them in P24 and the #21 Silver entry of Matisse Lismont and David Pittard the next row back again. The teams fourth entry, that of the #12 silver class of Lorens Lecertua and Dante Rappange would start P30 of a thirty-two strong entry.

Reminiscent of the early round from Misano to say the least.

The competitive nature of the grid, the complexities of the circuit with a car that was not necessarily performing who it was first designed saw the #11 car fall by the wayside during the race, the #007 move up the order slightly to achieve a P15 overall and P9 finish in class result but with the #12 and #21 cars finishing towards the back in P25 and P27 places overall and P7 in silver and P4 in gold respectively.

Then ahead of race two, it really did all wrong!

During the opening laps of Q2, both the #12 and #21 cars collided with each other at the final corner to bring out the red flag but with no real information or evidence into just what happened. None the less, both cars suffered opposing corner damage to one another (suggesting side to side contact) that unfortunately left both cars irreparable at the circuit in time for the race start.

That was then compounded by the #007 not getting away from the grid on the formation that resulted in three of their four cars being noted as non-starters on the timing screen. The only saving grace was that their #11 gold entry of OGaard and Jakes were this time able to complete the concluding hour-long race to claim a mid-table P15 overall and P4 finish in class.