Four years since last competing in the International GT Open Series with their then trusty Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3, Sussex based TF Sport took their long term customer racer Salih Yoluc back to the Series this weekend along with one of their new V8 Vantage GT3's for a little additional race seat time to help fill the gaps in their revised race calendars.

Returning with one of his current World Endurance Championship co-drivers in Charlie Eastwood, the opening pre race sessions from a very hot Hungaroring in Hungry saw some nice time advances for the #34 Pro Class crew as each gathered speed throughout the two testing and two Free Practice Sessions and into todays first race of the weekend having Qualified in P10 earlier in the day.


With Yoluc taking the start for this seventy minute race, the young Turk did the sensible thing of keeping himself out of harms way as the seventeen GT3 cars thundered into turn 1. Luckily he did really as at least three cars came together, some spinning off with two of those going into immediate retirement as a result.

Making use of his thirty minute of race time, Yoluc elevated the teams now familiar red liveried AMR Vantage GT3 up to P8 by the time he pitted at the start of the available pit stop window for fuel, tyres and a driver change.


Whilst the running order balanced itself out with some cars running a late pit stop strategy with having their Pro driver starting the race, Eastwood was soon all over the back of former F1 racer Christian Klein as he entered his final laps of the race before pitting - which must have been amusing for him at least!

By the time as the pit window had closed, the #34 AMR had moved top to P6 thanks to a stranded Bentley ahead of them in running order who had spun out aided which then brought out the Safety Car for recovery. Losing eleven minutes to that caution period it looked like Eastwood would have his work cut out as he featured as the tenth car in the Safety Car chain with other runners being found ahead and out of position relative to theirs.


That quickly turned out not to be of any issue as a heavy impact for the #5 Mercedes Benz AMG in the barriers towards the rear of the pack on the green lap immediately brought out the Safety Car again. Fortunately able to remove himself from the car unaided and apparently uninjured Race Control simply saw out the remaining six minutes of the race behind the Safety Car as both recovery and the required level of barrier repair was simply unrealistic in that available time period.

That result left Yoluc and Eastwood classified as finishing P6 overall but P3 in their Pro Class at their first time of asking (having run in Pro-Am last time in the Series) with race 2 still to look forward to tomorrow with Eastwood this time starting the race!

Photo credits - GT Open / TF Sport

F anyone who had been paying attention to the social media channels of the International GT Open Series would have realised that over the last couple of weeks there was Aston Martin Racing related news in the offering.

That news has today been official confirmed by both team and Series and makes for some great news especially after something of the disappointment in our last AMR Partner team post from North America and comes in the form of Salih Yoluc and TF Sport now confirming their return to the European GT3 series after something of a four year break.


Having last competed in the series with one of Tom Ferrier's V12 AMR Vantage GT3's back in 2016 with his then partner/driver coach Euan Hankey, Yoluc soon progressed up into ACO rules racing with the then GT3 Le Mans Cup Series and ultimately into the World Endurance Championship over the consequitive years after. Yoluc has today confirmed that this year he be partnered by current WEC team mate Charlie Eastwood for another full season entry for the already heavily Covid-19 revised calendar in his V8 turbo charged Vantage GT3.

With their WEC racing duties now few and far between, the amended GT Open calendar has allowed for a new dual racing season for the Turkish and Irish duo as Yoluc continues to push for personal improvement in his racing commitments as they this time around he races within the Series full Pro class.


This news also comes as good news for Ferrier's team and for the Series in general as troubled times loom in the not so distant future for many of their racing competitors as society struggles to recover from the latest world pandemic.

“I am very happy to be coming back to the GT Open championship, it has grown so much since I last competed in 2016. Charlie and I have shared many successes in the last couple of years, so I’m really looking forward to being out on the grid once again” said Yoluc in the teams press release today.

With civilisation and motor racing slowly but surely returning towards something that will eventually be construed as being 'normal', there is no way we could miss off the events of the 2017 World Endurance Championship in our series of corona-virus passing time galleries.

Being the second year with the new aero regulations that produced those prominant rear defusers, 2017 would again see the same variant of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE run in both GTE Pro and GTE Am and having stayed with tyre partner Dunlop, the team thought that they had retained an edge over their class competitors after the success of the previous year in GTE Pro.

Running just three cars again for the nine round series of that year, another juggle around in drivers saw Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen being joined by Richie Stanaway (for the first three rounds only after which he would leave the them and return home) in the #95 Pro car whilst Darren Turner and Jonny Adam were joined by Brazilian stock car racer Daniel Serra in the sister #97 car. The #98 GTE Am car of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda saw out the line ups for the full season at least.

With photographs from the only two rounds of the year that we attended, things proved difficult for the ageing normally aspirated V8 Vantage at the opening round at Silverstone with both Pro cars only able to bring up the rear in class by the end of the six hours whereas the #98 crew did at least convert their class pole into a P2 finish in their field of just five cars.

The big news of course came two months later at the Circuit de La Sarthe in France where the avoidance of last years shenanigans in Balance of Performance put last years winning Ford GT's firmly back in their place but at least allowed the Vantage to blossom. A late Qualifying session run for Turner late on Thursday night put his #97 on Pole for the 24 hour race with the #95 only just behind in P3.

Joining the #98 crew in GTE Am saw the return of the #99 Beechdean AMR GTE of Andrew Howard, this time with Ross Gunn and Oliver Bryant and a new GTE entry from TF Sport for their customer racer Salih Yoluc. He would be joined by his then usual side kick Euan Hankey and a returning Rob Bell.

For this race the proceeding 23hours and 55minutes were all just a warm up as Jonny Adam left it to the last lap to pass the then GTE Pro class leading Corvette to secure his and Serra's first win at Le Mans - something that Turner was a little more used to but a massive result for the oldest car in the Pro field!! The #99 Beechdean AMR car would finish highest of the Aston runners with a P4 in GTE Am.

That class win at the home of endurance racing was later complimented the #98 crew's ultimate achievement of finally lifting the GTE Am Drivers and Team's Championships by the end of the season with another mighty podium winning string of results.

What a way that was  of putting the 'old girl' out to pasture in the Pro class at least with the factory about to deliver their new turbo charged iteration of Vantage ready for the start of the 2018 season.

These photos (not in any particular order we're afraid) may not be anything special, but are ones we certainly have enjoyed taking and witnessing events from behind the lenses - hope you like them too.

Seeing more news today of some imminent AMR customer team testing coming up next week, we hope that part 12 will be the last of our looking back in time as circumstance now allows us to look forward to what's in front of us for a change.

In the meantime - keep safe and we hope to see you at a race track soon.































































































































End.