Four Aston Martins also keep us occupied in the Australasia theatre of motorsport this weekend

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Within this already hectic weekend of sportscar racing, the fun and excitement also take us around the world as both the SRO GT World Challenge Asia and GT World Challenge Australia Series conduct their next rounds of the season from Okayama in Japan and at Phillip Island.

For the Asian side of the equation, this weekend will be their penultimate round of their seven round overall season but also the final round of their Japan Cup sub-Championship.

Within both races, the D’Station Racing Aston Martin Racing powered team will again be entering one Vantage GT3 within the main body of the event for the #777 Pro-Am pairing Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii as well as a Vantage GT4 within the Japan Cup side of things for the #47 Am class drivers Tatsuya Hoshino and Kenji Hama. Joining the #777 car will again be the solo driver #8 Earl Bamber Motorsport Vantage GT3 entry of Setiawan Santosa.

Championship wise, the Japan Cup Series will conclude this weekend and whilst mathematically possible for the #47 D’Station Racing crew to win the overall GT4 Drivers title, the odds of overcoming the thirty-six-point deficit are slim but the pairing do still rest joint second within the drivers table as well as still fifth within the GT3 Am Drivers Championship having started the four-round season with a new Vantage GT4. The pair have certainly been steadier since reverting back to the GT4 based platform.

For the overall Championship, there is still Okayama and a season finale from Shanghai later in September but sadly performances to date for the Fuji Speedway based team sees the #47 pairing languishing down in P11 within the Pro-Am class whilst as steady and consistent points haul for Santosa sees him in sixth place within the GT3 Am class, sixty two points behind the leader but with one hundred points still on offer from the four remaining races of the season.

Then over at Phillip Island, the GT world Challenge Australia Series will be running its fifth round of a seven-round season at the GT Festival event.

This time of course, two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s are entered – one being the season long Trophy class entry for the V12 Vantage #38 KMB Motorsport entry of Valentin Astuti alongside an as yet TBC co-driver for this event.

It’s a similar case for the #14 Volante Rosso AMR Vantage GT3 entry of Alex Gardner who this week has Spiros Poulakis alongside him in his new car as Ben Porter is already otherwise engaged within the GT World Challenge Asia Series in Japan. Poulakis joins the #14 car from the other side of the team garage as his usual co-driver is this time partnered by a one David Brabham in their Mercedes AMG GT3.

For the Volante Rosso team, the previous round from Queensland was certainly a true baptism of fire for the young Radical driver and their just acquired AMR Vantage GT3 from the States after an unfortunate incident at the end of Q2 saw the car impact the tyre wall and sustain damage that could not be rectified at the circuit. Hopefully this time, they will get to race their car for the first time!