Private testing at the circuit had seen the crew start from the very bottom of the timing screen earlier in the week to see them comfortably placed midtable by the end of the Free Practice sessions going into Qualifying before dropping back down to P6 by the end of that process.

With earlier rain showers having passed the circuit by, the two-hour race got underway under clearing blue skies and rapidly warming temperatures with the usually expected degree of contact between the rear of the LMP3 cars and the head of the GT3 entries with the Safety Car being called on the opening lap.

Dropping back to last overall by the time of the restart, that left a lot of work for Sager and Van Der Steur to do over the next one hour and fifty minutes. Further periods of caution saw the race again stagnated as further cars and debris were removed from the circuit with the #11 car making its way up to fourth by the time the GT’s then started to pit for fuel service and driver change.

A further Safety Car intervention for a small fire aboard another LMP3 car took further racing minutes off the clock with Van Der Steur loitering menacingly third in class with just over thirty minutes remaining. Having passed the #65 Mercedes, it was a straight chase after the #17 Kessell Ferrari for ultimate class honours and with less than twenty to go.

The job was eventually done with ten minutes remaining where just the top two in class were racing without any post-race time penalties looming at the chequered flag as the #11 Aston Martin eventually finished P26 overall and first in class for their efforts for the Code of Racing Development team to now lead the Teams and Drivers Championship by eight points as now Le Mans comes into mind.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

With next weekend being the first of the IMSA / FIA World Endurance Championship diary clashes, the Heart of Racing has been forced to make a driver change within one of their two entries.

Within GTP, their Aston Martin Valkyrie entry for Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis remains unchanged with the #27 crew praying for some performance relief from IMSA technical after Long Beach showed just how vulnerable the not hybridised Aston Martin was around the street circuit just a few weeks ago and Laguna Seca would be expected to be little different.

As with both the team’s IMSA and FIA WEC programme with their new hypercar race programme, everything this year is new and the development of that car appears to be heading in the right direction in terms of endurance and longevity but as usual, it’s just the performance side that needs a little help.

Joining them again at Laguna Seca will also be the #27 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD of (usually) Casper Stevenson and Tom Gamble but Gamble’s pre-occupation with his HoRT’s FIA WEC commitments at Spa Francorchamps, Belgium on the same weekend means that the team have called upon the racing services of their GT World Challenge America GT3 racer in Darren Turner to pair up with his countryman Stevenson for this racing adventure.

Despite both Daytona and Sebring being podium winning successes for the #27 crew, last time out at Long Beach was something of a reality check after losing early ground with delaying that Full Course Yellow pit stop, and driver change process to later suffering the effects after heavy contact from a passing GTP car. At the end of that race, the #23 GTP finished as high as it has so far this season in P8 whilst the #27 finished a disappointing for them P9.

This race will be waved off at 15:10hrs local on Sunday May 11th.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

The entry list shows a combined grid size of forty GS and TCR based cars with just over half of those being for the GT4 based GS entry. Team TGM returns with its pair of full season entries with Matt Plumb and Paul Holton again within the #46 car with team boss Ted Giovanis and Hugh Plumb aboard their #64 Bronze cup entry.

Frand DePew and Robin Liddell also resume their long-time driving arrangement within their #71 Rebel Rock entry whilst we welcome back husband and wife Ben and Christine Sloss within their #15 Van Der Steur entry after Ben was otherwise detained for the Sebring round.

The two Bronze Cup #15 and #64 entries both enjoyed a great start to the season with P2 and P3 (respectively) visits to the podium after the four-hour season opener at Daytona back in January before improving upon that net time out at Sebring with a P1 for the #64 crew followed up by a P2 for the ad-hoc #15 crew after that two-hour round.

Within the main competition, reigning GS Champion Matt Plumb and Holton have had to endure something of a challenging start to the season that saw a lowly finish at Daytona before being unable to capitalise upon their pole position at Sebring just a few weeks later. The #71 Rebel Rock crew meanwhile have been steadily improving from their P19 finish at Daytona to P8 (and were also in race winning contention) to finish eighth.

This third-round race will start at 15:45hrs local on Saturday 10th May.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Suffering disqualification from both Qualifying sessions for technical reasons after the event, the #1 car had to drive through the pack to secure a P5 finishing position at the end of race one whilst on Sunday they went even better to finish upon the podium in P2, narrowly missing out with a race win such was their pace.

Now more settled into the surroundings, the #1 crew will obviously be looking for something better in qualifying that will put them in good stead against their fourteen other race rivals around the 2.4-mile circuit layout.

Race one on Saturday will be a night race with a 19:55hrs local time start (sunset 17:13hrs local) before resuming normal service on Sunday with a 14:10hrs start to the second hour long race of the weekend.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Like Barcelona, we unfortunately only have one Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 within each of the two ACO rules series as the #59 Racing Spirit of Leman return with their all-French driver line up of birthday boy Clement Mateu, Erwan Bastard and Valentin Hasse-Clot whilst the LMC should see the #11 Code Racing Development Vantage GT3 of Rory Van Der Steur and Phillipp Sager.

Indeed, it was the last minute.com arrangements within the #11 Code Racing Development LMC entry that impressed so much last time out with it being the first time in Europe for the young American and the first time within an Aston Martin for Sager for them to deliver both a front row in class qualifying start to end in that position with a P2 finish first time out.

They will be competing this weekend amongst another grid of forty-two cars which will be made up of just eight GT class cars and thirty-four mixed class LMP3 entries.

We then have the #59 AMR Vantage LMGT3 entry from the Swiss based Racing Spirit of Leman team who also qualified well at the opening with Mateu bagging a second row P3 start in class, but they were unable to capitalise upon that the eventually finish P7 for at least some championship points.

They will be racing within a slightly larger grid size of thirteen GT runners alongside the same number in LMP2 cars and eighteen LMP3 entries.

Track action will begin on Thursday with collective test sessions for each series before the start of more formally timed sessions on Friday before both series move into Qualifying on Saturday with the start to the LMC race at 16:45hrs local. The ELMS race will start at midday (local) on Sunday.

Photo credit – Teams / Series / social media

Racing at their home track of Fuji Speedway sees the #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg return to the track together after another eventful opening round to the season at Okayama just three weeks ago where the pair failed to capitalise upon a P2 in class qualifying position to eventually finish P24 within GT300 after that event.

The entry list confirms the #21 Comtoyou Racing silver entry for drivers Jamie Day and Kobe Pauwels as well as the #35 Pro entry from the Walkenhorst Motorsport team for their driver Henrique Chaves and Mateo Villagomez. Whilst the #35 entry has remained static from its time of announcement earlier this year, the Belgian teams entries have been changed since Matisse Lismont departed the team in favour of a Corvette entry just before the start of the Endurance series with his space now taken up by an endurance/sprint entered Day, but with the total removal of their planned #210 entry.

That should have been for their new Brazilian pairing of Ricardo Baptista and Raphael Suzuki as they did within one round of the GT3 Winter Series earlier this year but with just Pro, silver and gold classes being competed at this weekend – that might explain way.

Whilst the abilities of Chaves are well documented, the reigning FFSA GT4 Silver Champion Villagomez is still at the start of his GT3 learning curve although this will not be his debut GT3 event having raced at the Bathurst 12hr and also double stinting within the Endurance Cup rounds with Walkenhorst.

Saturday will see the field to the track for Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying and Qualifying before race 1 at 11:00hrs local with race 2 soon after at 15:45hrs local.

Photo credits – Teams / social media / Daniel Burgin

The crew were eager to improve upon the misfortunes of the opening round from Motegi were a Qualifying session crash saw the team placed onto the back foot to repair the car in time for the race only to see the multi-tonal Aston Martin recover to fourth in class at the end.

This time around, things were better as the #777 crew qualified upon the front row in P2 for Sundays race and were able to claim a podium P3 result at the end.

Next up for the team will be the second test at their home circuit Fuji Speedway at the beginning of next month in preparation to the 24hour event at the circuit at the beginning of June.

Leaving the best till last, last weekend we also saw the British GT Championship again run their second round Blue Ribband event from the home of British motor racing at Silverstone with their customary three-hour battle around the full Grand Prix circuit.

Just three weeks since the opening round of the season from Donington Park, we also saw the Blackthorn AMR, Beechdean AMR and MKLH Racing Aston Martins joined by a fourth car as an invitational entry for this round which helped swell the grid from that of the season opener.

Both the #97 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Tom Wood and the #50 MKH Racing Vantage GT4 of Peter Montague and Stuart Hall enjoyed class success last time out with a Silver-Am win for the #97 and a P2 in Endurance Cup Pro-Am for the MKH racers. The #7 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 of Giacoma Petrobelli and Jonny Adam however, endured self-inflicted hardship last time out after heavy front-end contact for the Italian cost their opening bout in damage and drive through penalties to end their day with a lowly P9 Pro-Am class finish.

Fortunate enough to say that all full season entries were on point during Qualifying, making full use of the earlier Media Day track running with the new Pirelli control tyre to place themselves no worse than third in class for the start of Sundays race. The additional #19 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 entry of Claude Bovet and Charlie Bateman completing their qualifying run with an aggregated P6 in class result.

With air and track temperatures now much warming than before, the race go underway under mainly clear blue skies and sunshine but the busyness of the track and the slight performance margins between all crews meant that contact was inevitable at some point.

Indeed, Howard was one of the first drivers to suffer the consequence of that as he was given an additional ten seconds at his next stop for causing a collision but at least at that stage, there was still time to make amends. Fortunately, Petrobelli was also more conservative with his passing manoeuvres this time about as the crews cycled through their pit stop/driver sequences within their maximum drive time allowances.

At the end, both the #97 and #50 AMR’s continued their podium run in class with a P2 finish to impress their new sponsors this time around for the #97 car with the #50 also finish one step down the ladder this time in P3. It was also a better day for the two Blackthorn AMR’s as the #7 crew finally got some significant championship points under their belts with a P4 Pro-Am finish with the guesting #19 car also finishing P3 in class too (although a non-points scoring entry).

Next up are the first of the sprint rounds with Oulton Park stepping up first for their two, hour long races at the end of May where we also expect the MKH Racing crew step aside leaving just the #7 and #97 Vantage GT3’s to cheer.

Photo credits – Team / Jacob Ebrey / social media

Trailing the pathways already set by the GT4 based series running within Germany earlier in the days saw three crews return class podium finishes at the end of their one three-hour round on Saturday. The new to AMR JMF Motorsport team continued their fine start to the relationship (as initiated at the opening round from Sonoma earlier in the month) with a P2 finish for the #4 car of Mike David Ortmann and Braydon Arthur.

Their silver class finish was closely followed by the #26 Heart of Racing AMR of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir who secured their first silverware of the new year as did the #15 Archangel pairing of Adrian Comstock and Thomas Merrill who converted a lowly P25 qualifying position into a P3 overall / P2 in Pro-Am finish for their efforts.

Those performances were mirrored within the GT America Series as the sole AMR running #39 Van Der Steur car of Max Hewitt continued from where he left off at Sonoma with a pair of visits to the podium for his P2 finish in race 1 and up one step to claim a class win by the end of the second forty-minute race of the weekend.

Finishing off with the Heart of Racing and Racers Edge AMR Vantage GT3’s competing within the GT World Challenge America Series saw distinct progress made from the two crews since their opening round in California. 

Inter team honours again went to the #24 HoRT entry of Gray Newell and Darren Turner over the #2 Racers Edge entry of Jason Bell and Michael Cooper (only just each time though) as Saturdays opener saw the pair move up the ladder to achieve P4 and P5 finishes in class respectively before ending the weekend with a P7 and P9 finish in class on Sunday.

All three series will be out again over the bumps of Sebring in little under three weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Three Vantage GT3’s and three Vantage GT4’s competed within the NLS including the racing debut of last season’s new Evo version from the Walkenhorst team as well as both a 17A variant and GT8R version of GT4 from the locally based Prosport Racing team.

Whilst the two Prosport entries were both full season, most eyes were upon the #34 Walkenhorst SP9 Pro entry of Mattias Drudi and Christian Krognes as they prepared for the teams full Pro entry into this year’s 24 hours later this year. They did that in style with a P2 finish overall at the end of this four-hour race with the teams SP9 Pro-Am entry also taking a P3 finish in class. Whilst the #36 Walkenhorst SP9 Am class entry and the #191 Walkenhorst SP10 GT4 entry failed to finish or were not classified, the #175 Prosport car did secure another P3 in class with the #140 sister car in P8.

That overall great news was sadly in contrast to racing fortunes of the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team within this year’s DTM series for its young driver line up of Nicolas Baerts and Gilles Magnes from Oschersleben.

With a field of twenty-four cars, the #007 of Magnes and the #008 of Baerts at least avoided being ‘tail end Charlies’ for the opening race of the season but failing to be weighed at the end of it did get both disqualified from the results. 

Race two didn’t exactly go much better as although Magnes eventually secured a P21 finish, Baerts failed to finish as the series now looks to its next round at the Lausitzring at the end of May.

Fortunately leaving Germany in a happy note, we also saw the opening two rounds of the ADAC GT4 Germany Series. Prosport Racing were on double race duties with the sole pair of Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s that saw their former champion in Hugo Sasse return to the fold with Pole position for the season opener. Unfortunately, illness struck down Anton Abee aboard the sister #17 for that opener so it was left to both Sasse and co-driver Roman Fellner-Feldegg for the opening race after which the crew delivered a P3 finish for their efforts.

Race two saw both cars return with the #17 car of Abee and Marek Bockmann outperforming their sister car with both taking P2 and P3 qualifying positions. By the end of that hour long race the #19 car had secured another visit to the podium (again) in P3 whilst the #17 car had recovered the situation somewhat with valuable championship points with a P6 finish.

This series now gets a slightly longer break before its next round from the Norisring at the start of July.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Not that was always the case at the opening round to the season from Motegi after an early session off for the lead to the aesthetically bizarre sight of the car running in a mix of its new red and more traditional green livery colours for the race.

Although at the time, the #777 was unable to make the qualifying sessions whilst repairs were being undertaken, the crew did come back from the back of the grid to secure an overall and class P4 finish at the end of that four-hour race.

Hopefully, they will have more luck this time around.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Diversifying out from their usual European based GT series this season will see the team embark upon an eight-round season across circuits in Germany, Austria and Holland. Featuring twenty-four cars for this opening round, the solo driven cars will compete within a one-hour race over both Saturday and Sunday.

The competition within the series will again be very tough.