The trouble with this weekend (UPDATED)

 

 

It’s about this time of year when our race reporting workload ramps up another step as the SRO America group of GT series kicks off at their seasonal opener from Sonoma but that’s going to be very different this time around.

We can all recall just how prolific the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 and GT4 platforms have been over recent years within the GT America, GT4 America and GT World Challenge America Series with up to twelve such platforms running at any point last season alone.

 

Last week’s provisional entry lists for these three series for this weekend’s seasonal opener from California have sadly listed precisely zero Aston Martins – not even the Rebel Rock Racing Vantage GT3 that was billed as a full and another expected GT4 entry from the Archangel team.

Now that might just be a glitch within the matrix as we have already seen new entries jump into what appears to be the GT racing preference of the IMSA group of series from last weekend’s second rounds but it is a worrying trend stateside but at least they can't get any worse!

 

Some of last season AMR based entries and drivers have also moved onto different manufacturers and series as we have seen with the Heart of Racing, 89X Motorsport and Skip Barber Racing to name a few and that is of course, an entirely natural process over the closed season but going from twelve to zero – what’s that all about??

Another gap in this weekend’s race programme is also with regards the postponement of the opening round and Prologue test (this week) of the FIA World Endurance Championship thanks to the ‘troubles’ being escalated within the region. Since then, we have also seen the F1 cancel their own rounds within that theatre of racing for the same reason but at least the FIA WEC Qatar 1812km event has been rescheduled for late October with the Prologue test being reassigned to just before the next round at Imola in just three weeks’ time.

 

Then, you add on top of all of that the expectation that the Australian based Volante Rosso team will be confirming a McLaren GT3 entry into this season’s GT World Challenge Australia Series – this weekend could be somewhat quiet - making time for other sporting enjoyments!!