Volante Rosso do themselves proud around the Mountain in the Intercontinental GT Challenge
Sunday, February 02, 2025
Having started the race still in the dead of night at The Mountain, reigning British GT GT4 Silver Champion had the honour of starting Volante Rosso’s one-off entry within their ‘local’ event from eighteenth of the grid of twenty-two remaining cars. Having never tested at the circuit in the dark in the build-up to Sunday morning’s start, the young Englishman did what he needed to do the get the car through into more sustainable daylight racing hours and preserve that position whilst others were failing to do so.
By the end of the opening stint, Day had survived one little brush with the concrete retaining wall to have raced his way into the top ten overall before handing over to car and event debutant in the FFSA GT4 Silver Champion Mateo Villagomez to get his first GT3 racing laps under his belts to run as high as second overall thanks to the sequence of their pit stop intervals and Safety Car interventions for three quick successive incidents for others over the mountain.
Unfortunately, the #14 was blighted with a number of avoidable penalties in the first half of the race for pitstop and Safety Car procedures which then pushed the car back down the order as the race hit the heat of the mid-day sun but by the halfway stage, they were still running within the top ten and leading their silver class too.
Unfortunately, the #14 was blighted with a number of avoidable penalties in the first half of the race for pitstop and Safety Car procedures which then pushed the car back down the order as the race hit the heat of the mid-day sun but by the halfway stage, they were still running within the top ten and leading their silver class too.
Passing through their usual driver sequence of Day, Villagomez and back to Aussie racer Jaylyn Robotham, trouble finally came their way with just three hours and fifty minutes remaining when Robotham brought the car into pit lane for an unscheduled visits, and to be wheeled back into their garage with transpired to be clutch related issues.
Despite the herculean efforts of the team, the #14 Aston Martin lost over an hour in the garage whilst repairs were made but with just three cars circulating within silver, any finish would at least earn all a deserved podium finish, so their battle quickly became that of race preservation to be able to be classified at the end.
Eventually being able to repass the tail of the GT4 class, Day was able to bring the #14 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 home in P13 overall and P3 in class for all their efforts – a great undertaking considering their ages and experience against the best cars and drivers in the world.
All we need to find out now is just where will both Day and Villagomez emerge within the European based GT scene (with GT3 we are sure) and who will Volante Rosso have within the car for their return to the GT World Challenge Australia Series that starts on Phillip Island in early April.
Photo credits – Team / social media