This time, it was Stanley Yang’s turn to take control of the AMR Vantage GT4 Evo for the first time for this weekend’s two thirty-minute solo driver races where the Taiwanese driver qualified the car seventh overall ahead of both races.

Competing at probably not the best circuit to learn both a new car and new series, a Safety Car interrupted the flow of the opening race as Yang was pushing hard to reclaim time lost in the opening laps of race one to eventually finish P9 overall at the end.

Race two on Sunday saw the #87 car experience some degree of technical issue that saw Yang struggle to slow for one corner and for him to make for the pit lane as a result and although he did rejoin the race towards the end, he was obviously a long way back in the finishing order.

Next time out for the series will be in Beijing in mid-October before finishing at the Greater Bay Area GT4 event from Macau in mid-November.

Photo Credits – Social media

With twenty-eight cars still listed, technical inspections have already taken place ahead of the opening of track action around the 3.8mile Guia street based circuit layout where its total width can be no more than 7.0m wide in places.

The provisional entry list published today shows a twenty-eight strong grid for this 71st running of the event which will culminate with a scheduled twelve lap race around the tight street circuit layout on Sunday 17thNovember.

Photo credits – Stanley Yang

We understand that Tanoto’s first introduction to the Motorsport Services AMR Asia provided GT3 car was a simple one-day test back in Malaysia just before the car was shipped to the Chinese special administrative area in time for this weekend’s event with just the bare minimum of experience.

That proved to be so during the opening half hour Free Practice session as the #17 car first spun to later run wide again but clip the armco barrier, bringing out a red flag as a result but despite that, Tanoto was at least able to secure a top 10 time of 2:32:525 albeit over eleven seconds behind the pace setting Mercedes AMR GT3 of former AMR racer Darryl O’Young.

Unfortunately for all, that incident was to be considered as minor as during Qualifying, a further spin for the #17 car at the final Fisherman’s Corner saw the car stranded across the track and facing oncoming traffic. Despite red flags again being waved for some time prior, the #33 Audi still managed to exit the blind corner at racing speed to impact heavily into the front offside quarter of the Aston Martin.

Luckily, both drivers escaped serious injury but both cars were unable to participate within Sundays Greater Bay Area GT3 support race as a result.

Maybe the tight street circuit of Macau is not quite the place to debut in any form of race car or compete on a track far beyond that of your existing skillset – a criticism aimed at many other drivers who competed within the race programme of last weekend!!

Photo credits – Team / Macau GP

Having just been to the UK to sample the new Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo at Silverstone a couple of weeks ago, this is something of a surprise move from the team albeit one where this new iteration of race car would not qualify to be ran within the ALMS until next season.

That leaves the D’Station Racing and TF Sport teams flying the AMR flags with their entries for Satoshi Hoshino and John Hartshorne with further drivers not being confirmed until nearer the season opener in December.

Then in Macau – unfortunately we still don’t see the return of an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered entry within the coveted FIA GT World Cup event around the notoriously tight street circuit, but we do have one Aston Martin listed within one of the support races.

Having first learned of a new relationship between AMR and the Earl Bamber Motorsport team at the recent Thailand Super Series support race for the F1 around the street circuit of Singapore with a Vantage GT4, the Greater Bay Area GT Cup (GT3) support race entry list does!

Entered under the Earl Bamber Motorsport team name, Indonesian gentleman driver Anderson Tanoto is listed with that (so far un-numbered) entry.

In a somewhat fragmented racing career alongside that of his business ventures, Tanoto has raced an AMR Vantage GT4’s before with the Stoner Car Care (Automatic Racing) team during the 2021 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge visit to the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca where he shared that car with AMR Asia representative Weiron Tan. Since then, he racing commitments have been limited to just three starts within the SRO America GT4 America Series with a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4.

The 70th Macau Grand Prix weekend takes place over the 11th – 19th November.

Photo credits – Team / Social media / TSS