After the shinanagans of Race 1 earlier today, all four entries from TeamAMR did themselves proud during the second race of the European GT4 Series Northern Cup event at Brands Hatch today.

With the second, "more able" driver starting the second race of the meeting that would see Matt Nichol Jones take the start in his #62 Vantage GT4, the colourfully liveried #007 of Street Art Racing's Denis Dupont starting P12 whilst Quantamatic Racings Mike Hart would start P20.

Despite some determined efforts by some all at least managed to make it around the first lap without spinning or crashing before the 30 car field began to spread out but just before the 20 minute mark the first Safety Car was deployed due to Porsche team mates clashing coming into Clearways. At least for all the Aston Martin entries positive progress was being made up the timing and scoring board.


Having lost ten minutes of racing to that incident the race itself would resumed straight into the opening of the pit window. Will Moore had just taken over the #62 car and had just rejoined the track when it had a major moment with a McLaren going into Hawthorn Bend but at least this time he kept it out of the gravel.

Moments later and with several cars spun off around the circuit the second Safety Car period was set.

Indeed a third further Safety car intervention period would wind things up for 8 minute dash to the line with the #62 soon snatching P3 from the #10 MacLaren, the cart that so nearly put the car into the gravel just after the pit stop. Further more Dave Robinson was also up to the rear wing of the #10 as he chased the sister Academy Motorsport prepared car for the final step on the podium.


Then came a point where you would have to question driving standards of some as the #10 McLaren again made contact with the rear of the #62 causing an instantaneous puncture just after Druids but even before Moore could limp his way back a number of other cars had crashed out around the circuit forcing Race Control to through a red flag with just over 3 minutes still remaining in the clock.

Fortunately for Academy Motorsport,  the count back to the last green flag lap restored their P3 podium position to them with their antagonists in the #11 McLaren behind them in fourth and the #61 Quantamatic car in fifth. Further back the #007 Street Art Racing car would be classified as P7 with the #144 Generation AMR in P10.


Later the #10 McLaren would be awarded a post race time penalty for the avoidable contact with the #62 towards the end of the race. That would as a result elevate the #61 car of Dave Robinson and Mike Hart up to P4 and everyone else behind them up one place.

Again, the European GT4 Series proves itself to be a very competitive series but just maybe driving standards need looking at to prevent further rounds from being blighted with repetitive Safety Cars periods. The next round for the Northern cup is at the Red Bull Ring in Austria in mid June.

Photo credits - European GT4

A fast, furious and eventful opening race of the European GT4 Series Northern Cup's Brands Hatch meeting had all on the edge of there seats this morning as 30 odd GT4 cars started their first one hour race of the day.

A poor start from Will Moore in the #62 Academy Motorsport car saw him get passed by numerous cars even before they got to the first corner with his stablemate #61 Quantamatic Car of Dave Robinson alongside from P13.


After some gutsy racing Moore had soon recovered some of the situation and was battling for fifth but a wide line coming into Sheene Curve would see his car spin out into the gravel forcing a Safety Car just before the mandatory pit stops.

Worse was to come for Academy when Mike Hart, now in the #61 Quantamatic car should an equally over quick approach into Sheene Curve, narrowly avoiding all the armco and cars around him before becoming beached in the gravel at Stirlings - another Safety Car.

The repeated demands of a Safety Car (another was to follow before the end) at least kept bunching the field back up together leading to some more, eventful racing. Matt George continued some good early work in the Generation AMR SuperRacing #144 to finish P9 whilst the remaining Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 of Street Art Racing's Jerome Demay and Denis Dupont finished P14.

Race 2 will start 14.25

Photo credits - European GT4

After a busy day of Free Practice and Qualifying, the four members of the #TeamAMR family have today laid down their cards for tomorrows race grids for the European GT4 Series Northern Cup round at Brands Hatch.


Featuring the two full season entries from Street Art Racing and Academy Motorsport, they have been joined by two former British GT runners for this event in the form of the Quantamatic Racing and Generation AMR SuperRacing entries - with all competing within the Pro class.


By the end of Q1 this afternoon the cars will form up in this order on the grid for Race 1

#62 Will Moore Academy Motorsport P3
#61 Mike Hart Quantamatic Racing P13
#007 Jerome Demay Street Art Racing P24
#144 James Holder Generation AMR P26

For Race 2 and with drivers having swapped the the cars qualified in this order

#62 Matt Nichol-Jones Academy Motorsport P7
#144 Matt George Generation AMR P8
#007 Denis Dupont Street Art Racing P12
#61 Dave Robinson Quantamtic Racing P20


Race 1 starts at 10:15 with Race 2 starting at 14:25 (local) with both being streamed live at HERE

Photo credits - European GT4

The two full season entries from Street Art Racing and Academy Motorsport are due to be joined by two other Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's for this weekends second round of the SRO's Northern Cup Series at Brands Hatch.

The third car is of the course the return of the Quantamatic Racing Vantage of Mike Hart and Dave Robinson who will join the SRO series as a one off event as they appraise a more fuller time return to competitive motor racing. The cart was last seen out midway through the 2015 British GT Championship when Hart shared the car with Terry Langley which has since been fully upgraded to 2016 specification.


Their car will, as far as we understand things still be run by Academy alongside their existing entry for Will Moore and Matt Nichol-Jones as they look to replicate the success enjoyed in Race 1 at Misano in April.


The #7 Street Art Racing Pro entry of Jerome Demay and Denis Dupont will also be looking to progress from their relatively lowly start from the two previous races as they race at Brands for the first time.


The final, one off entry comes from the European GT4 Series Southern Cup full season entry of Generation AMR SuperRacing with James Holder and Matt George again at the wheel for which (we think) maybe the teams only planned UK race this year.

The GT4 European Series Northern Cup action starts with Free Practice 1 on 10.55am on Saturday May 6th, with a second Free Practice (14.25) and the Qualifying Session (17.35) later that day. The first Race (10.15) and second Race (14.25) will be held on Sunday May 7th. Free Practice, Qualifying and both races will be streamed live on gt4series.com/live and the GT4 European Series Northern Cup YouTube channel.
Photo credits - European GT4

What an opening round to the new European GT4 Series Northern Cup from Misano over the weekend that was!!

 Coming from a single series last year with healthy grid attendances, 2017 has seen the series morph into a Northern Cup and Southern Cup series with an entry list of 33 cars for the double header in Italy alone.

Entered into Round 1 were two Aston Martin Racing built V8 Vantage GT4's belonging to Belgium team Street Art Racing (who were last years AM Champions) and their first full season entry from Academy Motorsport. Both cars have been entered into the Pro class.

Qualifying for Saturday's night race Academy's Matt Nichol-Jones secured P6 in their #62 car whilst Jerome Demay struggled in his #007 car back in P31. Better was to come in Q2 when an exclusion promoted the Will Moore #62 up to P1 for race 2 with Denis Dupont up to P13 in the #007.


There was soon drama in Misano as the headline Blancpain event caused the race programme to seriously overrun by virtue of a sizeable, multi car accident at the start of their first race causing the European GT4 opener to moved back later by over two hours.

When the race did eventually start Nichol-Jones was soon back into his racing grove gaining four places on the opening laps to pick up P2 overall. A brief Safety Car period at the start for dropped oil on the track didn't deter any of the drivers cum the restart as cars all around jostled for position. For lap after lap Nichol-jones pushed the #112 Porsche Cayman for the lead before the #62 finally succeeded twenty minutes into the one hour race before loosing it again just before the Academy car pulled off into the pit lane for its mandatory stop.

Demay, in the decorative Street Art Racing Vantage had obviously enjoyed some equally energetic racing (sadly unseen by the camera and in the absence of any working timing pages) as he had elevated themselves up to P16 by the time of their mandatory pit stop.

Both Astons Pitted at the half hour mark for their one minute minimum pit stop.


On his own outlap, Will Moore soon drew the continued attention of the leading #112 Porsche as an unnecessary side slap into the Aston from the leader momentarily forced the #62 car wide - a move that earned that driver an investigation from Race control although (we believe) no action was ultimately taken.

By the time the pit window had closed and positions had equaled themselves out Moore was ten seconds down to the leading KTM X-Bow of L Marioneck with another Porsche hard on his tail but with just six minutes remaining the #92 Porsche finally took P2 from Moore.

With a P3 podium still looking a like a good result from a hard race the #92 was then awarded a late drive through penalty for improving under waved yellow flags - that obviously lifted the #62 back to P2  come the chequered flag a few moments later. In the other car, Dupont managed to bring their car home in P10 - another fine recovery drive after a disappointing qualifying!



After a shorter tun expected overnight break, race 2 would see last night's finishers take the start of race 2 under the very warm springtime time sun of the Adriatic circuit and of course that would see Will Moore control the grid from the front having been promoted to pole in Q2.

The advantage was soon unfortunately lost however as the #62 car was overtaken by two Porsches going into T1 with the #007 being very fortunate to avoid two spinning X-Bows into the same corner. 'Normality' was soon to resume as Moore soon established a comfortable race pattern in P2 with Dupont a few cars behind in P7.

Race 2 was being raced in an equally competitive pace as race 1 with just as many overtaking manoeuvres happening at nearly every corner due to the equality in performance of all the cars. By the time the #62 pitted (again at the half way mark) the race looked comfortable for the Academy car although the pace of the leading Porsche did appear to be a little hot for them at times.


Just as the #62 car pitted, race Control announced that Moore had used all their tolerance of exceeding track limits during his half of the race and any further transgressions would be met with suitable penalties being applied.

By the time race 2's pit window had concluded the #62 retained P3 overall but Nichol-Jones appeared to be struggling with grip and traction as those behind him closed the gap - the prospect of a drive through for exceeding track limits certainly didn't help matters either and wasn't long before the Academy had slipped down to P5. That was soon remedied however when two the X-Bows in front of him took each other out of the race coming out of the final corner - back to P3!!


With just nine minutes remaining Nichol-Jones tried to take an inside line into T12 from a back marking Scuderia Villorba Corse Maserati one or both drivers misjudging the situation causing both cars to make contact and spin - loosing track position for the #62 and the race for the now stranded Maserati.

Even the resulting Safety car period wasn't enough for the #62 to recover themselves from that ending the race behind the Street Art Racing car in P7 and P9 respectively.


Despite the set back in the second race the Adaemy team can look back at the Misano event with pride as it does show that V8 Vantage still has a raceable BoP against the newer GT4 models. The new Street Art Racing will soon find their racing feet helping to push their car up the leader board as well.

Next event is at Brands hatch over the 6-7th May.

Photo credit - Academy / European GT4 / Street Art Racing

A record breaking grid of 33 cars have been confirmed for the opening round of the new (for 2017) European GT4 Northern Cup series that starts at Misano, Italy this weekend.

Amongst the grid of many Porsche Cayman's, McLaren 570's, KTM X-Bow's, Maseriati's, etc shall be two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's belonging to Belgium team Street Art Racing and UK team Academy Motorsport.

Rejoining the championship for Street Art Racing is 2016 Am Champion Jerome Demay in the teams colourful #007 car - he will be joined by Royal Automobile Club of Belgium team driver Denis Dupont as they also move up to the Pro category.



Committing to their first full season in this championship is the British Academy Motorsport team of Matt Nichol-Jones and Will Moore with their #62 car. Moore and another former team mate, Dennis Strandberg saw out the series finale at Zandvoort last year narrowly missing out on an podium finish and they obviously liked what they saw.

Having shaken down their car this week at the British GT Media Day at Snetterton on Tuesday at least the team will only have a 'few' decals to swap!!

Track action starts on Friday afternoon with the first free practice, followed by the second practice session at 6.20 pm. Qualifying will take place on Saturday afternoon with the start of Race 1 at 9pm. Race 2 will get underway at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.

Both races will be streamed live HERE

Reigning European GT4 AM Champions, Street Art Racing have been employing the artistic prowess of a local arts school to help them create the livery that will adorn their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4(s) for 2017.

Always running a livery design far from that of the norm within the european racing scene, we understand that the winning design has been determined and the car, together with all the other designs will be on displayed in the courtyard of a local French restaurant in Mons, Belgium at the end of the month.





The Belgium team are scheduled to enter an AMR GT4 car into both of the SRO's European GT4 Northern and Southern championships although no more has yet been confirmed.

Photo credits - SAR

Born from of the remnants of Belgium racing team GPR in 2014 the forthcoming season will see relative newcomers Street Art Racing enter the SRO's GT4 European Series.

Sporting a very distinctively liveried Aston Martin racing V8 Vantage GT4 the four Belgium drivers (Albert Bloem / Rene Brugmans / Jean-Marc Bourdouch / Damiaen Dupont) take a step up from Belgium Racing Car Championships and selective Creventic International Endurance Series races to concentrate full time on this years GT4 championship sporting the very AMR/AML fashionable car number #007.


The livery comes about from a "street artist' - Steve Locatelli who has for this project substituted has normal wall canvas for the curvaceous lines of a V8 Vantage.


The six round 2016 GT4 European Series starts in mid April at Monza before visiting Pau, Silverstone, Spa Francorchamps, Hungaroring before finishing at Zandvoort in Holland in October. The Silverstone event is an invitation to the series to compete in the SRO's sister British GT Championship event and will be a three hour race so at least us British GT fans will get to see the car in the flesh.

Photo credits - SAR