Peace returned to the Mountain circuit of Bathurst today after numerous cars were either badly damaged or destroyed in the final Free Practice and first of three Qualifying sessions earlier on Saturday.

The head count on damaged cars during FP5 could have also have included the #62 R-Motorsport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Luca Ghiotto as he suffered a 'glitch in cornering adhesion' (for the want of a better term) whilst going through the left hander into McPhillamy Park. Despite taking a large loop through the gravel he at least survived to lap again whereas others would not be so fortunate.


The end of Free Practice still left even the fastest of AMR cars still 1.6 seconds off the pace of those at the top but at least all four Astons were slowly improving as the session progressed.

Q1 later in the midday heat of the near Australian outback saw all remaining thirty six cars run albeit for the GT3 teams, this was just procedural and an affective fuel burn off stage ahead (refuelling banned once Qualifying starts) of their main Qualifying session next.


Fifteen minutes into the first forty five of Q1 saw a massive accident take place at the scene of Ghiotto's earlier near miss and that wiped out both the Mercedes AMG and the Marc Cars involved. Best news of all was that both drivers removed themselves from the wrecks of their cars unaided and were mainly uninjured.

Due to the delay in clearing the track, this session was reduced in time length but being only used to determine the grid for the GT4 and INV starters, this mattered not to the GT3 teams as their clocks effectively zero'd again ready for Q2.


Ten minutes into Q2's thirty minute session disaster struck the #62 R-Motorsport with this time Marvin Kirchhofer at the wheel. Running slightly wide coming into The Grate, the #62 car bounced off the outside concrete wall (breaking its right hand side geometry and steering), sending it (luckily) rearward and hard into the concrete wall again for a massive secondary impact.

With debris being strewn in all directions the car is then seen to stand up on its now crumpled rear before rolling over at least once before coming to a half (fortunately) on any wheels it had left. Miraculously in this case, Kirchhofer had already started to remove himself from the wreckage of his car as emergency crews and other drivers reach the crash site and attended to him - seeing him walk unaided to the medical car was the best news that anyone could ask for at the time and that paid testimony to the design, build qualify and technical regulation that goes into modern race cars. The chassis however will have to be consigned to the scrap heap and replaced!


With personal concern still in their minds, it was amazing how these drivers then went out again to finish off their Qualifying despite everything that they had just seen. All was not sadly done though though in the 'land of carnage' as a Lamborghini managed to crash and land on top of the tyre wall at the scene of the previous Mercedes/Marc Car accident!!

At the end of the day - progress has again been made by the now three remaining AMR teams from both R-Motorsport and Garage 59. Jake Dennis and his #76 crew reached the Top 10 shoot out again but had to settle for a P10 start in tomorrows race having finished just 1.1 seconds behind the Pole setting Porsche.


The two Garage 59 cars P18 overall for the #188 Pro-Am entry for Alex West/Come Ledogar/Chris Goodwin/Maxime Martin (that's a P3 start in class) whilst the immensely impressive so far Silver #159 entry for Andrew Watson/Oliver Hart/Roman de Angelis Qualified P20 overall and P2 in Class.

Race starts 18:45 GMT Saturday evening and its going to be eventful!!

Photo credits - IGTC

Stoner Car Care Racing and Automatic Racing launched the 2019 MICHELIN Pilot Challenge season with a strong showing at Daytona in Friday’s BMW Endurance Challenge. With three Aston Martins being fielded by the team, it was a big effort to be prepared for the four hour enduro to open the 2019 IMSA season.

Leading the charge for the Orlando-based squad was the No. 99 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin, driven by rookie Gary Ferrera and veteran Kris Wilson as the team came home with a second place finish after leading nine laps and making a daring last-lap pass to seal second at the finish. 

The dropping of the chequered flag at the end of the 4hour race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria at the weekend must have come as welcomed relief for the Massive Motorsport team who, up until then were the only team not to have any points on the European Le Mans Series board from the two previous events.

Having already had a massive race ending crash in Silverstone at the start of the 2015 season and then technical issues arising from another significant off during Free Practice at the next race in Imola, the team would have arrived at the circuit with a revised race plan of simply restoring driver confidence and running to the own strengths regardless of what their GTC opposition was doing.


With two 90 minute free practice sessions available to the teams over the course of Saturday simple track time for all three drivers would be the objective with the two pro drivers, Caspar Elgaard and Kristian Poulsen setting and balancing the car for their Am driver and team money man Simon Moller. Although the #68 car finished bottom in GTC in FP1 early indicators proved that the car had balance and good pace compared to their rivals at a circuit they had not visited before.

Their testing setup and approach was further vindicated at the end of Free Practice two when a small but significant half a second reduction in lap time placed the Danes up to P3 in GTC just behind two of the AF Corse Ferrari's.

As with the European Le Man Series, qualifying is always held on the morning of the race and under a fastest car time round the circuit basis but with the circuit having had a sizeable thunder storm the night before the track for the 20minute qualifying would be green and unpredictable.

Elgaard would be the first GT driver out of pit lane at the start of his session and his lap time of 1:33:329 would ultimately be the teams fastest and thus used as their qualifying time, albeit that would mean a grid start down in P28 by the time a grid penalty had been imposed on an AF Corse GTE car further up the leader board.

Under crystal clear skies and an air temperature of 27degrees the 29 cars would be lead up the steep hill leading to turn 1 under the single green flag lap ready for the start of the 4 hour race. Cum the start of the race and with the prototypes quickly scurrying away the GT's were soon left to develop their own battles per class before two Safety Car periods within the first hour reminded all as to the fragility of their cars.

Incredibly, the #68 car with Elgaard at the wheel would soon find itself running first in class on merit as those around them started having 'issues' and he would hold that lead of just under a second until their first pit stop at the top of the first hour. That stop would also be the start of a double stint for Elgaard.

With more, although thankfully short Safety Car periods being generated from incidents and accidents the resultant bunching of the cars back together proved advantageous for Massive Motorsport especially for when Simon Moller got into the V12 Vantage just before the top of the second hour as was still able to keep the cars that he was pursuing in check during his 1hour drive time.
By the end of the second and third hours of the race together with the driver change from Moller to Poulsen the #68 had dropped down but was comfortably maintaining third in GTC. Was this strong running simply down to the recent change in BoP minimum weight for this race?

With Poulsen now at the wheel and comfortably keeping the red and white car out of harms way and out of other peoples races two further and quick successive Safety Cars within the final hour would place the #68 directly on the tail of the TDS Racing BMW Z4 in a dice to the end for second overall in class. GTC class leaders and eventual winners were over 2 laps in front and therefore uncatchable.


With the front running cars already having crossed the finishing line the cameras from the live TV stream soon panned onto the battle for the remaining GTC podium position between the TDS BMW and the Aston Martin. Despite some great pressure with some very gentlemanly driving from the Dane, Poulsen would ultimately be unable to find a way past the BMW on this relatively narrow circuit but he would at least take a class podium finish just 0.187 seconds behind the BMW.

At last a finish to be proud after having put in so much effort for no reward up until now and a result that was richly deserved too.


Next race is at Le Castellet over the 5-6th September before the season finale at Estoril in mid October.

Photo credits - Massive Motorsport / ELMS

Danish team Massive Motorsport return to the European Le Mans Series in Austria this weekend looking to score some points in their so far fruitless 2015 endeavours.

Having crashed out of the lead at the opening round at Silverstone back in April and then losing a large percentage of track time at the next round at Imola in May because of technical issues the team will be hoping that the 4hour race at the Red Bull Ring will be their turning point in fortune.

Going into Round 3 the team's Aston Martin V12 Vantage GTC shall at least benefit from a positive change in the Balance of performance criteria that has just been announced for all GTC competitors. The Vantage shall now benefit from a 20kg weight reduction in minimum weight compared to that imposed on the car at Imola.



The GTC class shall again feature five cars out of the twenty nine car entry for the event. With the ELMS cars supporting the World Series by Renault showcase event free practice will again be limited to two 90 minute sessions either side of lunch on Saturday, with qualifying on Sunday morning before the green flag lap for the race at 13:30hrs local on Sunday afternoon.

Photo credits - ELMS

Sitting on the start grid under the glorious Imola sunshine last Sunday, Massive Motorsport must have been thinking that they had finally turned the tide of misfortune that had been coming their way and a finishing result would be forthcoming.

Having missed virtually all of the first free practice session due to a technical issue followed by a vehicle damaging off in the second session the all Danish team found themselves languishing at the foot of the timing screens with very little set up data and mileage before the all important, but very brief qualifying session the next morning.

With Kristian Poulsen and Simon Moller undertaking qualifying duties this time around the duo would achieve an aggregated time worthy of only P4 in class but nearly two seconds adrift to the GTC class leaders.


Also sporting an additional 25kg in BoP ballast from that imposed after the first round at Silverstone Poulsen would be the nominated starting driver having missed out at Silverstone after their race ending smash into the pitfall.

Taking the green flag in the classical ELMS style the Vantage GTC car would only make it to the third lap before more technical gremlins would force him to pit and despite near heroical efforts by the mechanics the team would loose over an hour to a power steering fault.

Obviously the race by then was lost, so team efforts turned into making the remainder of the four hour race an extended test for both remaining drivers Caspar Elgaard and Simon Moller.


Many people would call these events as 'character building' whilst others would simply call it as being 'unlucky'. Either way Massive Motorsport come away from another event empty handed but also come away wiser as to what they need to do to achieve. They will use the eight week break in the series until round three in Austria to examine and correct what they did wrong and to build upon what they did right.

The Red Bull Ring might just be the circuit the Vantage needs to fully stretch its legs again?

Photo credits - Massive Motorsport

A technical issue and poor weather conditions during the first Free Practice session for the 4Hrs of Imola put pay to any intentions that Massive Motorsport had set themselves prior to the event.

Only lasting a few hundred metres before the red and white Aston Martin V12 Vantage GTC (GT3) ground to a halt on the side of the track it is not yet known whether or not the track conditions played any part in their generator failure but at least the team did have enough time until the next session to effect the necessary repairs.


Come the second Free Practice session after lunch the team were at least able to get 26 laps in the drier and warmer conditions before Simon Moller nosed the Vantage into the tyre wall on the exit of Tosa prompting a Full Course Yellow. Although the damage was enough to put another early end to their practice session it is hoped that it will not affect their qualifying runs tomorrow morning.

GTE/GTC qualifying takes place from 10:00Hrs local with the race itself starting at 14:00Hrs.

Photo credits - Massive / ELMS