The Walkenhorst Motorsport team last weekend bucked the trend of their Aston Martin Racing stablemates at Comtoyou Racing having all of the fun within racing competition of late as they came away from the Misano with two podium finishes in class to their name.
Racing at just the second round of the Sprint Cup Series, the German based Walkenhorst team entered two silver classed AMR Vantage GT3’s alongside the three AMR entries from the Belgium based Comtoyou team for the weekend’s two one-hour races.
Race one on Saturday would be an into the night race with the forty-four strong grid lining up just before dusk but with just the #34 Walkenhorst AMR of Jamie Day and Mateo Villagomez breaking into the top half during the earlier qualifying getting a P12 overall starting slot over the next best of the #7 Comtoyou Racing Pro class entry of Nicki Thiim and Kobe Pauwels.
Race one unfortunately got off to a troubled start with many of the front running cars making contact with one another with two cars sustaining damage with a wide debris field that necessitated the Safety Car before the end of the opening lap.
Fortunately none of these were AMR powered runners but that did lose ten minutes of the race clock during the clean-up operation before things got going again as Day still featured as the only Aston Martin runner within the top half of the entry coming up to the mandatory pit stop window.
By the time that had finished it was practically dark around the mainly unlit circuit as now Villagomez took up the charge within the #34 car but with something of a comeback drive from Pauwels aboard the #7 Comtoyou car as he was climbing his way up towards the overall top fifteen.
Despite a late FCY for a car stranded in the gravel that would eventually see the race finish under waved yellows, the #34 completed the opening race of the weekend with an overall P14 finish – P2 in silver whilst the #7 car still missed out upon a class top ten finish despite their best of efforts. The #21 Comtoyou silver entry of Oliver Soderstrom and Arthur Dorison ended their day with a credible P3 in class – two places in front of the #35 Walkenhorst entry of Maxime Robin and Gaspard Simon. The #11 Comtoyou Racing bronze class entry of Felice Jelmini and Marcelo Tomasoni would feature at the tail end of the pack at the end of both races in their opening weekend of the series.
Race two on Sunday would be run under the full heat of the summer sun but with Pauwels starting from the second row of the grid in third and with the #34 Walkenhorst this time the next based AMR in P21.
A cleaner start this time saw Pauwels drop a place before holding position for what then appeared to be a resumption of the abilities, but brake issues would quickly see the car back in the garage for what be an immediate retirement. That left Villagomez still down in P21 as the lead Aston again.
As the race progressed, the #35 teammate of Robin was next seen climbing both the class and overall race ladder immediately prior to their stop but once that had been completed, their sister #34 again took over the leading reins for Aston Martin. Whilst the two remaining Comtoyou Racing cars got a variety of time penalties for (usually) track limits which put paid to their races, it was to be another great display from the two Walkenhorst entries again on Sunday.
Day and Villagomez came home to secure their second P2 in class podium having come home P16 overall whilst both Robin and Simon had their best result to date with their P5 finish in class.
The next round of the season will be from Magny-Cours in France in just ten days’ time.
Photo credits – Team / Series
