Double success again for Walkenhorst in ADAC GT Masters visit to Spa
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Having contested with earlier rain during yesterday’s test day, the sun was there to stay throughout the earlier part of Saturday to allow Q1 and the extended eighty-minute endurance race to be completed within the comforts of a warm, dry circuit.
Having suffered a delayed start to race one thanks to a clean-up operation from an earlier race, the #34 Walkenhorst car of Denis Bulatov and Mike David Ortmann would heading the AMR quartet with the #27 Prosport Racing AMR of Raphael Rennhofer/Hugo Sasse, the #35 Walkenhorst car of Chandler Hull/Nico Hantke and the #37 Prosport Racing car of Hendrik Still/ Jamie Day starting line astern from P13/P14 and P15 of the eighteen strong grid.
Almost a clean opening lap for the race but for a small mistake from Bulatov that would see car run wide and through the gravel before recovering on track albeit three places lower down the order whilst the other three Aston’s looked keen to compare the two differing performance iterations of the two versions of the Vantage GT3 on offer this weekend.
An early Safety Car to recover a stranded car on track broke the rhythm just fifteen minutes in and indeed delayed the opening of the first pit stop window within which the teams could choose either the shorter or the longer mandatory time this time around. Going back to green with just under an hour remaining, the #37 Prosport car of Still was the first AMR to bail for pit lane whilst the #34 car would become the last of the four to pit.
First stops all over and Sasse would find himself the highest AMR up the order having chosen the shorter mandatory stop time whilst the #34 selected the longer time as Sasse moved up to P5 (at best) whilst his former ADAC GT4 Germany teammate (Ortmann) dropped to P11 on track at this stage of the race but by the end of these guys stints, the positions on track had all be reversed.
The other two Astons was also busy squabbling it out on track as Day also drove his first GT3 racing laps against a more GT3 experienced driver (Hantke) in the #35 Walkenhorst car.
Due to the earlier delay of the first ten-minute pit stop window, the second was also delayed to take place just twenty minutes before the end with the original race starting drivers due to get back in having completed the required stop time not undertaken in their first.
Quickly, Race Control investigated the #34 car of infringing this time requirement and awarded Bulatov (now back in the car) a visit to the penalty box section of the track for their efforts. Their #35 stablemates Pro-Am entry had also moved up the order as Hull took back control of the car from P7 overall (P3 in class) for what appeared to be a possible double podium for the team again.
Whilst the #34 would hold on to fend off all the attention of the chasing #4 Porsche, a problem for that car on the final lap saw the Porsche stop and the #35 car move up to fifth overall and take another class win to join the #34 crew upon the podium after they finished P3 overall. The #27 Prosport car would finish P12 overall with the #37 P14 overall – both stellar performances from two mainly GT3 inexperienced crews running togther for the first time.
The crews and grid go again tomorrow with Q2 ahead of a shorter forty minute – pit stop punctuated spring race.
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media
