So near yet so far from both a race win and championship hopes for two Aston Martin crews at Le Mans Cup yesterday

Yesterday’s penultimate round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup Series from Silverstone certainly threw some metaphorical spanners within the works during that two-hour race that saw one Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered team potentially lose the class win whilst making for a very nervy final round of the championship as far as their title hopes go.

Friday saw two Free Practice and one bronze driver test ran within remarkably warm and dry track conditions (once the residual of Thursday’s overnight rain had burned away) leaving for some very pleasant conditions both on and off track for the combined LMP3 and GT3 grid entry of forty-four cars.

 

The #11 Code Racing Development entry had, however, seen a further driver crew change since the last round at Spa Francorchamps with Belgian racer Stephane Lemeret joining young Brit George King behind the wheel as he (King) continues his transition from small prototypes into the GT3 category.

The #91 Blackthorn AMR car of Claude Bovet and Tom Canning was also back and in one piece after their technical issues in Belgian alongside the then GT3 Championship leading #10 Racing Spirit of Leman car of Philipp Sager and Valentin Hasse-Clot. After a points blip in Belgium, with a decent points haul at Silverstone having the possibility of securing them the title one race early – other finishes dependent.

 

Going into Qualifying, pace had been good across the three Aston Martin’s so far but it would again be the #11 Code Racing Development AMR of Lemeret who would secure class pole position with the #91 Blackthorn car of Bovet an encouraging third but with Sager again struggling with the Silverstone layout in seventh.

With the Am drivers taking the start, the opening hour was at least warm and dry as (as usual) the dominant LMP3 based entry went about tripping over each other and restricting the early laps of racing with multiple yellow flag/Full Course Yellow incidents. Whilst Lemeret looked comfortable out front, Bovet was having an entertaining battle with those behind to maintain his third spot, but Sager’s race was already going badly as, having dropped to eighth on track – he got an early ten second time penalty at their stop for not following Race Control instructions at the start.

 

First half hour done and it was the first Safety Car period for both debris on track and for another LMP3 car stopped on track – something that negated Lemeret’s then 3.5 second lead in class. Once the race got going again, Sager was fortunate not to be collected by the LMP3 car that he had just pushed wide coming out of Becketts and onto the Hanger Straight next time around.

With a very restrictive ruleset on drivers minimum and maximum drive times, the natural slot for the compulsory stop was just before the hour where most (not all) had stopped for both new driver and (then) new slicks at the first availability. The #11 car held out for as long as they could before eventually pitting from P8 overall with King going out again on slicks. Then came the rain!!

 

At first at just around parts of the circuit before it became a deluge around all of it as those who had gone out again on slicks were forced to pit again for wets with the #11 car of King having an (unseen) off track experience to drop them down to fourth as a consequence. Ten minutes later – the rain was gone and the track was drying quickly again forcing most to return to pit lane for a third time for slicks again.

Pushing hard too quickly on those slicks saw another LMP3 go off into the gravel – something that elongated second Safety Car period leaving just a twenty-five-minute dash to the flag. For the #11 crew, their race winning hopes had been washed away in that rain as King could do no more than maintain their then P4 position to the end whilst Tom Canning was suffering similarly within his #91 Blackthorn car for a P7 finish in class.

 

For the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman drivers’ championship chasing crew – Silverstone became something of a nemesis for them again as they eventually finished two laps down in nineth. That saw their earlier points domination in class slashed to just five points going into that final round of the season from Portimao in a months’ time.