Great to read this evening that an Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 is expected to return to the ADAC GT Masters Series next season with an as yet, unidentified team.

A press releasee from the Series today confirmed that both AMR and Honda would be making a return to the German national series as part of an incredible 2021 race that has witnessed an application process from over fifteen teams for over thirty-three cars ahead the seven race weekend series (fourteen races) that starts in mid-May at Oschersleben.

This will be the first time that an AMR Vantage GT3 has run in the series since PROsport Performance (as it was then) had initially two full season entries for drivers Maxine Martin/Daniel Kielwitz and Valentin Hasse-Clot/Hugo de Sadeleer in 2019 before that all ‘went south’ and David Griessner and Matt George got a test in one of the team’s GT3 cars at the Nürburgring in September 2019.

As yet, the identity of the team and the two drivers has yet to be confirmed.

Photo credits – ADAC GT Masters

Last weekends final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge from the rejuvenated Kyalami race track in South Africa was very much a breath of fresh air in the world of motorsport with all too many events these days taking place at sterile, more heartless and lack lustre venues.

Obviously, the Kyalami of today differs greatly to that of the seventies when Formula 1 commanded and got the admiration of the world at large that it deserved back then even though there were all too many darkened days amongst them. Last weekends event however, was conducted in more notably enjoyable surroundings as the international racing community finally accepted this iconic name back into its fold with local fans in their thousands coming out to catch up on what they had so far been missing.


Whoever devised the day into night Free Practice and the similar nine hour race format was a stroke of genius as having the best the GT3 racing world could offer, all competing on a track brand new to most together with the unpredictable sub-tropical weather that the southern tip of Africa can come up with made the event what is was despite results not going the way of the Aston Martin Racing runners.

Having already contended with some truly remarkable weather patterns moving in across the circuit during the course of Free Practice and Qualifying, the start of the race on Saturday at least started under clear blue skies and increasing track and cockpit temperatures as the twenty eight starters got under way.


For the #188 Garage 59 Pro-Am entry, the race sadly never really got underway as an uncharacteristic gearbox failure aboard their AMR V8 Vantage GT3 sluiced oil onto the rear wheels of the car, putting starting driver Chris Goodwin into a half spin and through the gravel trap before making heavy contact with a sausage kerb with the front end as he began the recovery process to the pits. That was only his third lap!!

That combination of damage at either end of the car would consign them to the garage for the next two hours of the race - effectively ending their podium bid unless they could later complete 70% of the race winners distance. Co-drivers Alex West and Come Ledogar would have to sit patiently for their turn.


Garage 59's misfortunes meanwhile left the reigns of the AMR brand firmly in the hands of the two R-Motorsport GT3's with them having started from a post Qualifying penalised P12 (#76) and P19 (#62) for their starting drivers of Maxime Martin and Hugo de Sadeleer respectively.

Despite both cars competing in the full Pro class, each car carried a non full Pro driver in the form of World Challenge Europe Silver Cup winner De Sadeleer in the #62 and single seater racer but GT rookie Enaam Ahmed in the other. Their performance on track however far from compromised the cars overall performance as the #62 raised itself as high as P2 overall just after the halfway mark with the #76 hovering around P17.


Just as the light began to fade, incidences began to happen on track and the threat of rain before the end of the race began to hold some real likelihood. A huge tyre blowout on the #108 Bentley threw up the need for another FCY following on from one earlier to recover a stricken Lamborghini from the local trio within the National Cup class in what had been a reasonably clean race so far. By then the Garage 59 crew had already worked their wonder on the #188 car with Goodwin already having completed his 'opening stint' before handing over to Alex West for his first laps in the race.

With the clock counting down to just three hours remaining, the #62 car still looked a menacing threat to the leading Porsches as the grey and blue liveried car circulated just 40 seconds back from the leader in P6 having themselves lost track time for an earlier drive through penalty for track limits.

Then everything got turned upon its heads!!


The #108 Bentley that earlier suffered a massive blowout suffered a more significant dilemma as it nosedived heavily into the tyre wall - another FCY was needed to recover it and repair the barrier damage just as the rain began to fall. Not slowly and progressively like we maybe more used to in Europe but with an off to on effect, quickly swamping the track with rivers of water for it to suddenly stop as quick as it had started.

Twenty five minutes behind the Safety Car later and it wasn't looking good for a restart anytime soon as the rain came and went only to return again as progressively longer and intense downpours. This, together with the poor weather forecast for the remaining two hours proved to be the end of the race for the #188 Garage 59 car as it was returned to the garage - not with any technical issue other than not being able to make up its minimum race time to be able to be classified by the chequered flag. They would finish their IGTC finale some 50 laps + short.


For the best part of the next ninety minutes, the remaining field tried to tippy toe around the 5.45km circuit as the thunder, lightning and rain continued to hammer down around the circuit as rivers of flood water washed over the circuit. At times it appeared impossible to simply drive around the circuit at the slowest of speeds yet alone race at any significant speed.
With neither team in any Championship position at this season finale in South Africa anyway, attention has already turned to the 2020 season of the Intercontinental GT Challenge that starts in little over sixty days at the 12hours of Bathurst in Australia at the end of January.

This is where the new AMR Vantage GT3 finally make its full debut in Australia having missed out on homologation rules at this years event.

Whats there not to like about this series?

Photo credits - Garage 59 / R-Motorsport / IGTC

Never having really gone away, it has been a lot of years since we have seen any mainstream international motor racing being beamed around the world onto our TV sets from the historical 4.5km circuit in Kyalami, South Africa.

Whilst hosting the Formula 1 circus for many years in the seventies, it racing history has been  colourful and diverse yet with dark overtones unfortunately taking the limelight from what was always a challenging circuit so it is always good to see new, brighter history being written at this circuit after too many years in the doldrums.

This weekend sees the Intercontinental GT Challenge host its final round of the 2019 season at the now revamped circuit with three Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's from two AMR Partner teams taking part in the form of both Garage 59 and R Motorsport for the final nine hours of racing.


From the first track action of yesterday through to the Top 10 shoot out of this afternoon, all three AMR cars have been showing their worth through some truly mesmerising weather conditions around what is an circuit.

The first Practice session of yesterday was conducted from under an incredible sunset, one that would go head to head with the likes of Bathurst and into full darkness with both Pro class R-Motorsport cars figuring prominently with their mixed driver line ups to what we have been previously used to.

The the #76 car, Maxime Martin would be again joined by Jake Dennis but also with the GT debuting Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year finalist's Enaan Ahmed. Their sister #62 would be made up of Marvin Kirchhofer, Ricky Collard and Hugo de Sadeleer - all well known within the team from the teams respective Blancpain GT Series activities of this year.


Joining these and still relatively 'fresh' from the podium finish in the last round of the Challenge series in Suzuka are the #188 Pro-Am Garage 59 crew of Alex West, Chris Goodwin and Come Ledogar.

The grid would be made up of twenty eight cars, most will be competing within the full Pro Class with three Silver, two Pro-Am, three Am class and two national entries including the likes of Charlenes Arangies who previously raced a V12 Vantage GT3 in the National GT arena with great success it must be added.

Moving into the three Qualifying sessions of this afternoon, each driver would have fifteen minutes to post their best time before all three driver times would be totalled and averaged out to determine which top ten cars would go into todays later Top 10 Shoot Out to determine the formation of the start of the grid.


Q1 started on a dry, warm track but had an obviously storm front moving towards the circuit with the forecast of more torrential rain with thunder and lightning probably.

West, Collard and Martin were all out first with the two R-Motorsport cars conducting only a series of installation laps in the first instance whilst West quickly got down to business with half the allotted time gone before either the #62 or #76 had actually set any lap time. Then out of the blue, Martin set the fastest lap of the weekend so far to claim provisional pole by over 0.1 of a second to the then pace setting Honda NSX. Collard would also set a decent lap time to finish in P12 but he would be pinged from track limits, losing his time on that lap to drop down to P26. West would eventually finish P22.

Next up in Q2 and with the rain getting ever closer and lightning now striking the ground in the suburbs around the track were Goodwin, de Sadeleer and Ahmed. Lap times were only showing their own lap times and their accumulative times rather than their times relative to one another in Q2.


On the timing board, all three cars were running in close formation to one another but as the rain began an error from Goodwin caused the rear of his #188 car to come around through the Esses and spin around to become beached on the fringe of the gravel trap forcing the session to be red flagged.

With just a few minutes lost to aid the recovery of the stricken AMR, cars in pit lane were all keen to get going before the rains really arrived - too keen for the #76 car in fact as Ahmed stuck the nose of his car out into the fast lane only for it to be clipped by a passing Audi. That error would ultimately cost them more track position at the end of the session after their unsafe release penalty was applied.

By now the wind and rain had really arrived on track with rain pouring down onto a circuit for of cars on slick tyres and wind ripping off the advertising hoardings as the wind speed hit gusts of nearly 50mph!!!


As a result of that, Q3 would be declared a wet session with headlights and high intensity rear lights all on but not all cars on wets. That quickly became apparent as Nick Tandy understeered his Porsche into the tyre wall to prompt another red flag which at least the remaining drivers to come to their senses to fit wet tyres during the short break.

Now more appropriately attired, it didn't take Dennis too much longer to get going as he battled with two Porsches for the honours of the top three positions - stealing P2 for a time before a last lap lunge from one of them dropped the #76 back down to P3. Still, that was a Top 10 Shoot Out place.

For both Kirchhofer and Ledogar, Q3 wasn't particularly productive for them (for unknown reasons) that left the #62 back towards the rear of the Pro class in P19 and the #188 the fourth placed non Pro car in P22. The #76 would go into the later Top 10 Shoot out for Dennis to finish in P7, 1.117 seconds off the lead pace but a further grid penalty would see that car drop to P12 for tomorrow's race.


Of course, being a nine hour race Qualifying doesn't really mean a lot as it is usually where you finish at the fall of the chequered flag that counts rather than from where you start. The start of the Kyalami 9Hr begins at 13:00hrs (local)

Good luck to you all!

Photo credits - R-Motorsport / Garage 59 / IGTC

The fifth and final round of the 2019 Intercontinental GT Challenge takes place this weekend from the Kyalami race track in South Africa with three examples of the new Aston Martin Racing V98 Vantage GT3 making their way down for Sunday's nine hour spectatcular.

The #188 Garage 59 Pro-Am entry of Alex West, Chris Goodwin and Come Ledogar make their way southwards for this weekend event having worked hard to recover their racing situation by the end of the last round at Suzuka where weather conditions had heavily impacted upon the grids preparations to finally claim a P2 finish in class by the close of that events ten hours of racing.


Joining them at the season's finale are also two examples from Swiss based R-Motorsport fleet featuring AMR's with three of the teams mainstream Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup drivers teaming up with two lesser experienced GT drivers and well as a GT debutant.

Having raced together in the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe Series sees Marvin Kirchhofer reunite with Ricky Collard in the #62 car and they are joined this time by fellow team World Challenge racer and Silver Cup runner up Hugo de Sadeleer.


In the sister #76 car, drivers Maxime Martin and Jake Dennis are joined by Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year nominee and F3 racer Enaam Ahmed for what is thought to be his first racing experience within a top flight GT car following his appraisal laps for the BRDC Award around Silverstone in one of Garage 59's AMR Vantage GT3's last month.


Track action starts this Thursday with up to four hours of Private testing ahead of a further ninety minutes of night testing to see out the day. Friday sees both Pre Qualifying and Qualifying ahead of of the rolling start for the 9 hour race beginning at 13:00hrs local.

Qualifying and the race itself will all be streamed live via the IGTC social media channels.

Photo credits - Blancpain / Garage 59 / R-Motorsport

Some interesting news just being picked up upon tonight is that two new names will now feature in this weekends penultimate round of the ADAC GT Masters Series form Hockenheim.

Again, the entry list for the event features just a sole Prosport Performance Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 but this time gone are the most established names of both AMR factory driver Maxime Martin and former series Champion Daniel Keilwitz to be replaced with two up and coming names from the AMR family of teams.


Instead we see Prosport Performance's GT4 European Series driver David Griessner step up to the plate alongside fellow GT4 racer from the Generation AMRSuperRacing team in Matt George for the two - one hour races from Germany this Saturday and Sunday.

George has put it out there that he tested with the team at the Nurburgring last week and that that was followed up by receiving a call from the team last night offering him his first GT3 race.


The team have of course been reduced to a single entry in the series since releasing both Hugo de Sadeleer and Vanlentin Hasse Clot after just the second round of the series and since have been unable to supply Florian Thoma a co-driver after he decided to step up to their GT3 programme.

Needless to say that both are extremely excited about it and we wish them all the best!

Correction ............

Both the team and series have today confirmed the entry of both of the teams AMR Vantage GT4's into the two GT4 Germany races over the weekend contrary to yesterdays provisional entry list.

The team have confirmed that Alex Mies and David Ortmann will again be racing together after their first event toagtehr in eta GT4 European Series finale in the #18 car whilst the sister #19 car will be shared by newcomers Christian Konnerth and Yannick Fubrich.

Photo credits - Prosport/social media

They came as close to it as that they could 'smell it' but after the final race of the 2019 Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe Series from the Hungaroring today, the best the #62 R-Motorsport Aston Martin Racing racing duo of Hugo de Sadeleer and Aaro Vainio could do was that of Silver Cup runners up.

The expression on their faces yesterday after again not being able to beat the Silver Cup Championship leading AKKA ASP Mercedes crew of Nico Bastian and Thomas Neubauer seemed to acknowledge that the #89 cars last lap pass during race one would leave them a step too far for the young Swiss and Finnish drivers the cross in the final race of the season.


That was because a poor Qualifying session from the #62 AMR Vantage crew would leave them starting race two from one extreme of the grid to one other as Bastian claimed a P9 slot whilst de Sadeleer would start from near the rear in P23. The only plus point then was that the second placed crew in the championship would be starting behind them come the race.

Fortunately (or not) the heavy rains of yesterday had left and the final hour of the series would be conducted on a warm dry track as the race got underway on its first lap anyway after a spinning Am class car called for the release and the Safety Car.


Loosing nearly ten minutes of the race, time was rapidly running out for the #62 car to shorten the gap on track to the #89 Mercedes. The sister #76 AMR of Marvin Kirchhofer would see out their season on something of a whimper as a spin just after the restart pushed the car to the rear of the field.

The AKKA ASP crew rode they luck later after contact with another car just before the stops but that failed to extend into any loss of performance on track - or indeed anything that may have benefitted the AMR crew.


At the end of the pit window the gap had narrowed somewhat with Neubauer now just two positions ahead of Vainio as the Finn charged in some great laps - going into the final ten minutes of the race they were then nose to tail in P8 and P9.

That sadly was not enough as the chequered flag fell on the field with these two cars still in the same position. Being over ten points behind before the race even started, finishing again behind the Mercedes was simply not enough to change the Silver Cup Championship position with Bastian and Neubauer claiming the title with a twelve and a half point margin. The team's #76 Pro car of Kirchhofer and Collard would finish the season P8 but some points behind the championship winner.


That all said, it was still a great performance by the team's two young guns across the season, especuilly for de Sadeleer who suffered the phycological setback of being released by another AMR Vantage GT3 early into the year so to end the year as runner in in a series as competitive as the Blancpain GT Series says a lot about his (and Vainio's) capabilities.

Hopefully we will see these guys out again somewhere in a GT3 car next year.

Photo credits - Blancpain GT / R-Motorsport

If chasing down a five point deficit to claim an ultimate class title was difficult enough at the best of times, then Mother Nature's added mix of heavy rain at todays penultimate race of the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe just added to the mix as Swiss team R-Motorsport took the conclusion of the Silver Cup Championship to the final round tomorrow.

Having spent most of the weekend so far in Hungary under clear skies and warm sunshine, todays heavy rainfall just after Qualifying was in start contrast and added an entirely different perspective on todays one hour race for all twenty eight cars.


With the team's Pro class #76 car of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhofer having Qualified in P4 for todays race, all eyes were rightfully upon their #62 pairing of Aaro Vainio and Hugo De Sadeleer who were (before todays results) just 5.5pts off the Championship lead as the Safety Car led the field off into the gloom of todays race.

Things could have really taken a twist today after the pole setting AKKA Mercedes crew of Nico Bastian and Thomas Neubauer initially dropped back into the pack during the opening stages of the race with the R-Motorsport/Arden crew then dispatching their #62 out into the class lead after the stop.


With a faster and more stable car beneath him, Bastian was soon able to claw back the gap to the #62 of De Sadeleer and (cruelly) passed him on the very last lap for the class win and to claim the Silver Cup Team title in the process. The #76 Pro car would ultimately finish behind their stable mate in P10 in order to maximise the points potential of the #62 car.

With 16.5 points still available in tomorrows race, all is still possible for any of the top three crews in the Silver Cup class with just eleven points separating them from first (AKKA ASP Mercedes) to third (R-Motorsport).


The way things stand at the moment - it is AKKA ASP's title to lose!

Photo credits - Blancpain GT

Swiss based Aston Martin Racing Partner team R-Motorsport are at the Hungaroring this weekend chasing their championship dreams at the final round of the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe Series.

After something of a slow start to the season with their pair of AMR Vantage GT3 cars that feature in both the Pro and Silver Cup classes, the team and their Arden colleagues have enjoyed a resurgence in results of late to promote their #62 Silver class entry for Hugo de Sadeleer and Aaro Vainio to just five and a half points behind the class leader with still thirty five Championship points on offer over the course of the weekend.


For the #76 Pro class entered car of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhofer, last weekends race win from the Nurburgring came too late for them to remain in Championship contention still being forty points behind their class leader.

Their double class podium from Germany will however serve as a catalyst for the team to see out their five round season on a high with (hopefully) their Swiss and Finnish claiming the top prize in the Silver Cup.


With the Free Practice sessions now having been run, competition between the twenty eight car - multi-class grid is again ultra competitive with just 2.5 seconds separating the entire grid as the teams prepare themselves for Qualifying and the first race tomorrow.

Photo credits - Blancpain GT / R-Motorsport

With their 2019 racing commitments still far from being over, German based Aston Martin Racing Partner Team have yesterday listed for sale their existing stock of AMR Vantage GT3 and Vantage GT4 race cars on the Racecarsdirect website.

Having swapped to the new turbo charged era of AMR race machinery at the turn of the year, the team have been racing their two AMR GT3 chassis within the highly competitive ADAC GT Masters series, originally as a two car effort before reverting down to just one car after early 'performance issues' on track lead to the team releasing two of their younger drivers.

The ADAC GT Masters Series still has two round left to run this season at both Hockenheim next weekend and the Sachsenring two weeks later but we will wait to see whether team regulars Maxime Martin and Daniel Keilwitz will again be joined by the sister GT3 car for either round or not.


Their two GT4 platforms however have been worked a lot hard this season with parallel racing commitments within the ADAC GT4 Germany, GT4 European Series and the Creventic 24H Series all taking their toll on both man and machine eventually forcing the team to sit out some races and take stock of their situation. With the GT4 European and 24H Series now resolved that leaves just two rounds of the German national GT4 series to go also at both Hockenheim and the Sachsenring.

This is not the first - nor will it be the last time that a team has offered for sale their racing stock before the end of the season - Academy Motorsport are presently doing the same. All we don't know is where PROsport will go after this and only time and news from the team will confirm that.

Full details of each listing can be found HERE for GT4 and HERE for GT3

Photo credits - PROsport

With the opening round of the new 2019-20 World Endurance Championship from Silverstone already stealing the headlines, this weekend also sees another busy schedule of European racing with three series reaching or about to reach their conclusions.

The Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe reaches its penultimate round of the season at the Nurburgring this weekend after something of a slow start with both the series calendar and one Aston Martin Racing customer team but now with one crew very much in the mix for a class title with just four hours of racing left to run in 2019.


Much like the start of the season, R-Motorpsort had something of a slowish start to the season with their crews competing in both the Pro and Silver Cup classes. Whilst the Pro #76 car of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhofer made for the early points at the opening races at Brands Hatch back in early May, it has since been the #62 Silver Cup pairing of Aaro Vainio and Hugo de Sadeleer who have stolen the march within the team to presently lie P2 in their Championship class going into this penultimate event of the season.

Back to back class wins last time out at the twisty coastal circuit of Zandvoort in Holland has helped to elevate the Finnish/Swiss pairing to just 15 points behind the Akka ASP Mercedes pairing of Nico Bastian and Thomas Neubauer.


For the Pro pairing, and despite promising Qualifying positions at some rounds has seen the duo fall behind in the Championship standings to P9 on 19.5 points whilst the lead car sits happily on 61.5pts.  With 16.5pts available per race that obviously means that the #76 are far from being out of contention before the Championship reaches its finale in Hungary in just over one weeks time but in order to place themselves into that position a decent points haul in Germany is a must.


As usual, both Free Practice sessions take place on Friday ahead of Qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday with the final one hour race on Sunday.

Photo credits - Blancpain GT

After a long summer break, the German ADAC GT Series gets back to business this weekend as both the GT Masters and GT4 Germany Series set about getting back to business around the tight and twisty coastal circuit of Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

For the GT3 runners in the ADAC GT Masters series Zandvoort is the forth round out of a seven round season whilst the ACAD GT4 Germany Series hit their midway point of their season with the Dutch round only being their third outing this year.


In both Series competes the German based Prosport Performance team ( operating their Aston Martin Racing racing operations under the PROpeak Performance banner) with a pair of new AMR V8 Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars entered into both series.

For the team, 2019 has proved to be something to difficult transition into both GT3 racing in general as well as the volume of motorsport being entered into by the team with their GT4 cars with each GT4 scheduled to participate in over three full season series/championships across Europe proving to be something of a self imposed hinderance and distraction.

Indeed, prior to the last round of the GT Masters Series at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, they elected to drop the one full GT3 entry line up of Valentin Hasse-Clot and Hugo De Sadeleer aboard their #98 car as the team strived to seek a knowledge and understanding of what was causing their under performance up until that point of the season. Since thence all four race cars have undergone completed rebuilds with the team even electing to skip a round of the GT4 European Series as a result after continued technical issues were being experience aboard their GT4 cars at the 24H Series 24hr race in Barcelona straight off the back of a difficult GT4 European Series event at Misano in Italy.


That decision in turn has provoked changes within the GT4 line up in the German Series as GT4 racer Florian Thoma steps up to fill one vacant seat about the #98 Vantage GT3 going into Zandvoort. Unfortunately for this very talented Swiss racer the second seat has yet to be confirmed by the team but the line up within their #99 car remains the same with AMR factory driver Maxime Martin again partnering former series champion Daniel Kielwitz.

In GT4 only the #19 car remains the same from the start of the season with Jorg Viebahn and Joonas Lappaleinen remaining despite their very shaky start to the season that has so far seen them not finish in half of the races completed to date.

In the sister #18 car it is however all change with Thoma having moved up to the teams GT3 programme, his former co driver Jeremy Lesoudier is also no longer with the team with these seats now being taken up by the teams GT4 European Series racers David Griessner and Akhil Rabindra.


In the build up to this weekend's two - one hour races per series, the team has been embarking on some local PR work at the Classic Days Schloss Dyck in southern Germany over the weekend before moving up to Spa Francorchamps on Tuesday for some testing.


Despite this, it will be great to see two lots of two Prosport Performance Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars hit the track again and at a circuit where its very nature and layout will generate for some very exciting motor racing. Lets just hope their jinx has now been broken and some serious championship points can be collated all round for a change.

Photo credits - Prosport Performance

It was double class podium delight this weekend for R-Motorsport's Silver Cup duo of Hugo de Sadeleer and Aaro Vainio at the third round of the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe Series from Zandvoort, The Netherlands.

Having had what could have been considered as a great meeting last time out at Misano when the #62 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 secured a P4 in race 1 before going some better by converting that into a P2 podium finish in race 2, then Zandvoort will have been their 'Christmas come early' meeting with two worthy top step class finishes for the Finnish/Swiss combo.

Arriving in Holland to some very mixed weather conditions, all very opposite to the heatwave that they had just contested with in Italy, Zandvoort started off with early possibilities for the team as their two AMR Vantage's Qualified P5 and P9 for the #76 car of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhofer and De Sadeleer and Vainio respectively.


Race one got off to the expected door to door hustle and bustle on the opening lap but that sadly culminated in a multi car accident on the opening lap that forced a Safety Car - losing the race nearly ten minutes of its allotted one hour of running. As the top three cars broke away on the restart, Collard in his #76 was quickly becoming the bottleneck as the rest of the field tried to pass the young Brit but without much success.

At the opening of the pit window, most of the top ten runners pitted - including the #76 car but the sister #62 carried on for a further lap.


By the time the stops had all been completed the positions of the two grey AMR's had changed with the #76 of Kirchhofer in P7 overall with the sister #62 car of Vainio just behind in P8 but running P2 in the Silver Cup class. The tightness of the track and comparative speeds of modern GT3's proved again difficult for any car to overtake but pressure from the #76 forced the then Sliver Cup leading Mercedes AMG to miss its braking point sending them straight into the gravel trap allowing the #62 to also pass the #76 for position to for it to claim P6 overall and P1 in Silver Cup. The #76 would finish race one in P7 - still valuable points for the team.

For Sundays race the starting positions had again been quantified in Saturday Qualifying with Pro #76 car again starting ahead of the Silver Cup #62 car in P9 and P13 respectively for Kirchhofer and De Sadeleer.


The start of the race was delayed as an Audi became stranded on the first formation lap requiring the Safety Car led pack to go around once again. Another seemingly long hold as the pack approached the line finally first appeared as if it would cause the same carnage as the GT4 European Series suffered in its second race of the weekend but at least that wasn't to be.

Some signs of rain falling around parts of the coastal circuit must have thrown caution into the minds of the starting drivers as the racing, although fast and frantic, was extremely orderly and risk adverse. For this race, the Vantage GT3 didn't appear to be quite on the pace and certainly was nowhere near able to meet the pace of the leading cars to quickly fall over twenty seconds back.


Whilst that hurt the Pro #76 car it was fortunately not the same for the #62 Silver Cup car as the impeding pit stop would allow them to leapfrog five cars in the pack (but more important over the then class leading Audi) to move up to P9 and P1 in Silver Cup. The #76 car meanwhile would lose twelve places after its stop!!

By the chequered flag, The #62 would cement its position on track to claim their second class win of the weekend with their P8 finish whilst Collard would recover to a P18 finish - massively disappointing for them.


Next stop in the Championship is at the Nurburgring at the end of August - meanwhile for R-Motorsport there is the small issue of the Total Spa 24!!

Photo credits - Blancpain GT