Two determined races from the Cosy Racing by ESM Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered team saw them get their championship aspirations back on track after the ADAC GT4 Germany Series visit to Oschersleben at the weekend.
Racing as only their third round to the season, their out of the box performances at the opening round of the year at the Red Bull Ring had been unsurprisingly muted by the series visit to the improvised street circuit layout of the Norisring last time out, so good performances were high on the agenda for both Jan Philipp Springob and Philipp Gogollok aboard their #4 car amongst the grid of eighteen other runners.
Despite repeated revisits to the Balance of Performance clip-board over the weekend, the weekend started well for the pairing on Saturday after Springob claimed pole position ahead of that opening hour-long race later in the day.
Not quite a comfortable lights to flag win, the #4 crew managed to stay clear of trouble during the opening laps to hold onto the race lead going into the compulsory pit window. A further full course yellow brought the pack back together again going into the final quarter of the race which left Gogollok busy in with his mirrors as he protected the teams run into another race win in the series.
Roles reversed for race two saw Gogollok this time undertake the role of qualifying, taking the start from P3 on the grid later in the day.
Decidedly cooler than Saturday and with the potential of further rain still on the radar made for a very skittish start to the race around the very greasy track. With something of a dry line nearly always visible around the track, the still falling rain did nothing to affect the flow of the race until just before the pit window when the rain fall intensified and two contacting cars left debris around the track. Delaying the pit window by a few minutes, the clean up behind the Safety Car was quickly down as the #4 car pitted from fourth.
With the rain then reducing in volume, the speed of the race towards the chequered flag increased accordingly as Springob chased down the podium placed cars ahead. That was quickly done as the #4 car moved up to third with any further charge thwarted by a late FCY for debris slowed the pace back down again leaving just a couple of minutes to the end. The team would eventually finish their third race weekend of the year with another podium finish to add to their race win.
Photo credits - ADAC
