Gold and Silver class success for AMR runners after another chaotic visit to Monza in Endurance Cup

Starting from the front row of the grid for Sundays three-hour race, hopes were obviously high but that hope lasted until virtually the first corner as an errant Mercedes pushed into the green Aston Martin pushing them down the emergency access road and spinning another title contending BMW in the process.

With further contact down the order that also probably saw out the bronze class #36 Walkenhorst Motorsport AMR of Tim Creswick/Mex Jensen and Benn Green, the #007 car was at least able to recover and continue albeit many places down as the Safety Car came back out. The relief for the #007 crew after this would however be short lived as an electrical issue sidelined the car long enough to take them well out of contention even before the race was an hour old.

Whilst one AMR teams Pro effort was struggling the other (#34 Walkenhorst) car of David Pittard, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Henrique Chaves was still circulating within the top ten having also been delayed by that incident going into turn one but at least there was still plenty of time to go and with differing maximum drive time requirements this time around, a lot of the action would be down to the respective teams strategists to decide.

Just a little further back, the silver and gold classed Aston Martins from both the Comtoyou Racing and Walkenhorst teams were also doing well as the #21 car of Charles Clark, Matisse Lismont and Job Van Uitert were circulating second in class, the #35 silver classed car of Maxime Robin, Lorcan Hanafin and Romain Le Roux third in class with the class rivalling #12 car of Nicolas Baert, Kobe Pauwels and Sebastian Ogaard immediately behind in fourth.

Despite further on track frivolity involving others, things had improved by the halfway stage as the #21 car of Lismont was now leading the gold class with the #12 and #35 cars now second and third respectively in silver although one of those would soon hit trouble with a puncture.

Going into the final hour and another Safety car period had Hasse-Clot finishing his opening Pro class attendance within the series holding fifth overall with the Walkenhorst car looking good for a possible podium challenge at the time with Leroux retaining the silver class lead in eleventh overall and Pauwels holding second in silver after Lismont picked up that puncture along the start straight.

As the light and race clock began to fade, the podium gravy train had unfortunately long since departed both Pro class entries after earlier technical issues for one and latter penalties for the other, both for the remaining gold and silver entries – Monza would become a memorable event for these crews.

Eventually finishing P15 overall, the #21 Comtoyou crew would claim P2 in silver with the #35 Walkenhorst crew picking up P3 to make it an AMR 2-3 in class for their efforts whilst the #21 gold class Comtoyou Racing entry would also claim the final step of their podium with a P32 overall finish.

Now there is a two month break before the Endurance Cup completes its final leg of the season from the Middle East but importantly within the Overall Drivers Championship stakes – the #007 Comtoyou Racing crew still retain a slender three-point lead over yesterday’s second place (in class) finishers from AF Corse whilst in both silver and gold classes, these results have come too little too late to make any significant difference.

The extended six hours of Jeddah will run on the 30th November.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media