Its been such a long time but Spa is always worth the wait!
Much has of course changed since our last, memorable visit to the historical Belgium circuit back in 2019 as nothing short of blood, sweat and tears from the FIA WEC and their supporting partners has kept the world championship on track after the start of the pandemic just a year later to that round to where we are today. The thought back then of waking up to race day back then to find a heavy dusting of snow at the start and then torrential icing rain at the end is an experience hard to forget but then, that is one of the very reasons to travel to Spa if you have never been before!
Last time we were there, the racing commitment from Aston Martin Racing and its Partner teams was also somewhat different from what we find today as two factory supported GTE Pro entries were of course supported by two AMR Partner Team entries from both Northwest AMR and TF Sport. Today we simply have three GTE Am entries from both Northwest AMR and TF Sport teams after the financial situation within the parent company put paid to them defending their GTE Pro crown of 2020.
For these crews and teams, there was much to celebrate back in 2019 with a class win in GTE Pro for the #97 car of Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin and a GTE Am P2 finish at the end for the older specification AMR Vantage #90 TF Sport car of Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Euan Hankey.
Moving back forward to this season and the track success has continued for the now, all turbo charged AMR Vantage GTE crews after the opening round of this season at Sebring International Raceway in March when the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana, Nicki Thiim and David Pittard beat the pole setting #33 TF Sport AMR car of Ben Keating, Marco Sorenson, and Florian Latorre to take an early ten-point lead into this second round.
Since Sebring, we have also learned of the swapping out of Frenchman Latorre from the #33 TF Sport car in favour of Portuguese racer Henrique Chaves for the remainder of the FIA WEC season and including Le Mans in June. Reasons for that change will be (we assume) tactical or political after Latorre’s GTE debut in Florida left nothing obvious to consider but is something that still hasn’t been explained by the team.
After the 1000 miles of Sebring, we are back to a traditional six hours of Spa Francorchamps next Saturday with thirty-seven entries across the Hypercar, LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am classes now confirmed for the track action that begins on Thursday.
Joining the #98 Northwest AMR and #33 TF Sport Aston Martins in Belgium amongst the thirteen strong GTE Am class again will of course be the #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg after their sixth placed finish at Sebring with their new for 2022 driver line up.
Whereas we certainly do not want to see any repeat of last year’s Free Practice incidents and accidents for the AMR runners, Qualifying and race pace was good for these cars last time out although this time out, the #98 and #33 cars do of course have the benefit of their winning last time out success ballast to contend with – 30kg over their base weight for the #98 crew and 20kg more for the #33 crew. The #777 car will just need to stop the unforced errors and resulting penalties and they too could easily move up the order at Spa.
Despite all the additional paperwork and certification that appears still to be required to travel and media accreditation these days, it will certainly be good to get back to Spa!!
Photo credits – AMR / WEC
Driver swap at TF Sport ahead of 2nd round of WEC at Spa Francorchamps?
Just over two weeks before the second round of the 2022 World Endurance Championship from Spa Francorchamps in Belgium and we thought all was well within the three full season Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE powered entries from both TF Sport and Northwest AMR!
That was until today!!
So far not acknowledged by either the FIA WEC within their entry list expected for the six hours of Spa which takes place on the 7th May nor the team, but certainly within the realms of social media, sees the #33 4 Horseman car of Ben Keating apparently revise its driver line in time for the next round in Belgium and beyond.
Now being stated on-line as joining both Keating and Marco Sorensen within the blue livered AMR Vantage GTE will be Henrique Chaves who takes the place of Frenchman Florian Latorre who debuted within the WEC with the team at the opening round of the season last month at Sebring.
Reasons for the change are not clear as after the #33 car finished only second in class to the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana, Nicki Thiim and David Pittard at the end of the opening 1000 miles of Sebring!!
Chaves did of course test with the AMR collective at Sebring when Pittard’s race category status was unclear at the time following his winter FIA revision and retains other AMR drives within other series.
Only time will tell us of the reasons behind this swap.
Photo credits – Team / WEC / ELMS
A dominating performance from the three AMR teams at the weather affected WEC Sebring opener
Having experienced some typical March weather at the Sebring International Raceway earlier in the week during the Prologue test, reports were to expect some more before the end of the eight-hour 1000 miles of Sebring opener.
Having been the man of the moment again during Qualifying, Ben Keating again placed his #33 TF Sport prepared AMR onto the front row of the GTE Am grid (beating some GTE Pro drivers in the process) with the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana alongside him in second but an incredible 1.36 seconds down in time. Satoshi Hoshino completed the trio placing his #777 D’Station Racing Aston in fifth out of the twelve class runners.
Under clear blue skies and intense Floridian sunshine, the eight hour or 268 lap race kicked off with thankfully a clean start all round with Dalla Lana quickly assuming the class lead from Keating in the opening laps and with Tomonobu Fujii (starting the #777) also doing another one of his sensational starts to elevate their car up to third by the end of the first half hour of racing.
With the Astons now running with a slightly reduced full capacity to that of last year, it wasn’t surprising to see all pit before the hour as each car indicated a clear difference in race strategy to one another as Keating would run another triple stint aboard the #33 car to allow co-drivers Florian Latorre and Marco Sorenson to complete the remainder of the race.
Both the Northwest and D’Station cars meanwhile would cycle through each of their bronze and silver drivers in a mixed format as each gentleman driver needed to complete a minimum drive time 140 minutes. That allowed Championship debuting David Pittard and Charlie Fagg to show their stuff and between them all – they more than did in style.
Only losing track position at the forefront of the class, the #98 Northwest and #33 TF Sport AMRs showed their rivals a clean pair of heels with only the Project 1 and Dempsey Proton Porsches being able to mount any form of challenge as the race went forward. Hoshino meanwhile (one of the oldest drivers on the grid) was also running a smooth and consistent lap time pattern – only losing out on track to the mainly #85 Iron Dames Ferrari 488 to hold onto a top 5/6 position in class.
With air temperatures now hitting the 30-degree mark at the halfway stage, weather warnings for towards the end of the race became more probably as the AMR trio held onto a P1/2/4 position in class. By now we were becoming really surprised by the distinct lack of pace from the Ferrari contingent behind!
Then the first big incident of the race as a tangling Toyota Hypercar first contacted and spun out with a Porsche GTE Am car having first chopped off their bow out of the corner before recovering and then ploughing, head on into the tyre wall as damage to the car lifted the front off the ground and prevented it from steering. Smashing into the tyre wall and rolling, the race was immediately red flagged for safety as rescue crew rushed to the aid of the #7 car’s driver. Fortunately, he was OK but the circuit workers would need over half an hour to repair the damage to the tyre wall.
After the resumption of the race from behind the Safety Car, we saw former WEC GTE Pro Champion Nicki Thiim climb aboard the #98 Northwest car for his first racing laps in the GTE Am class as he soon eked out a 28 second lead as Latorre battled again with in Inception Racing Porsche for position in P2.
Just after Hoshino pitted for the final time having served his minimum, a Full Course Yellow came out for debris on track with just under two hours (of a now timed – not distance measured race). Marco Sorenson then got his chance to debut in the #33 car having taken over from Latorre and it wasn’t too long before he had closed the gap and passed to recover the cars long time P2 position in class behind Thiim.
Seventy minutes to go and another red flag – not for any incident this time but for weather inbound over the circuit as by law and not by Regulation, the race had to stop to allow all to seek cover as the dark clouds rumbled in. With 44 minutes to go, the race did restart again behind the Safety Car before it was soon stopped again with another red flag for the same reason.
With just twelve minutes of the race clock remaining the result was called by Race Control.
A class win for the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana, David Pittard and Nicki Thiim with the #33 TF Sport of Ben Keating, Florian Latorre and Marco Sorenson in second. The #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg in sixth.
What was more remarkable was that these results were mainly achieved via the laps put in by their respective Bronze and Silver ranked drivers with none of the Pro drivers getting in much more than an hour aboard their cars before the race ending red flag.
Next stop for the Championship – Spa Francorchamps in early May.
Photo credits – Adrenal Media / Teams
Next stop - 1000miles of Sebring on Friday for the three AMR Vantage GTE teams
The biggest question since learning of the three full season Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE powered entries from both TF Sport (including D’Station Racing) and the Northwest AMR team was who would be the silver ranked driver aboard the #98 Northwest car after David Pittard was elevated by the FIA to gold over the winter.
Thanks to some not so specific posts from the team and others over the days leading up to Saturday’s start of the official test saw that the team had also employed the services of Henrique Chaves to be at the circuit should Pittard’s appeal be unsuccessful. Fortunately for Pittard, his appeal was apparently successful and his listing with the FIA has been reverted back to a silver grade for the season but both silver drivers were still listed as testing with the team and drivers Paul Dalla Lana and Nicki Thiim – which they did.
As with all testing and free practice sessions, little if anything is released by a team as they circle through their pre-determined list of minimum seat time per driver, changes in set up and general practice ahead of the main event, in which case is later this week when the formally timed track sessions of the opening round of the WEC begin in earnest. Any comparison between crews and teams at this stage would be pointless - the true detail will only start to emerge during Qualifying.
With trials and tribulations of their own as well as anything that Mother Nature could throw at the Floridian circuit, all three Aston Martins were scattered across the length of the GTE Am’s timing screen as the four sessions passed. Sometimes people like Thiim popped up towards the top as fastest whilst others remained towards the bottom having had limited laps in that session due to technical issues but fortunately all avoided any significant incident and damage – unlike some!
Hopefully any remaining winter gremlins have now been ironed out of all three cars as the #33 TF Sport Vantage GTE of Ben Keating, Florian Latorre and Marco Sorenson; the #777 D’Station Racing Vantage GTE of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg and the #98 Northwest car of Dalla Lana, Thiim and Pittard looking forward to competing within the 1000 miles of Sebring on Friday 18th March.
Photo credits – Adrenal Media / Teams
Pittard confirmed to run in #98 Northwest AMR Vantage GTE at Sebring after all? (UPDATED)
Having been recruited as a silver grade driver to fit neatly between the Bronze of Paul Dalla Lana and the Platinum of Nicki Thiim, the young Brit suffered the angst of being elevated to gold over the winter and therefore was outside of Regulations to compete within the team in any part of the 2022 WEC and Le Mans 24 season.
Today’s report from Graham Goodwin suggests that Pittard has won his grading appeal with the FIA and can therefore go about his duties with the team at this weekend’s mandatory (for him) test weekend and into next week’s preparatory sessions for the 1000 Miles of Sebring opening round.
That is fantastic news, not just for him but also the greater AMR fan base as the #98 Northwest AMR crew could easily be considered as a pre-season favourite within their GTE Am class. We also see that the #98 car will indeed compete in the colour scheme of their recent Daytona Rolex 24 GTD effort but is apparently not the same platform (converted to GTE) as they used in January.
This news completes the Aston Martin line up going into the Prologue as the #33 TF Sport Vantage GTE of Ben Keating, Marco Sorenson and Florian Latorre and the #777 D’Station Racing Vantage GTE entry of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg remain unchanged as do their cars colour schemes as see last season.
Staying with the WEC, yesterday finally saw the confirmation of the entry list into this season’s 24 Hours of Le Mans after delays caused by the global embargoes and restrictions being placed upon Russian interests.
It was however slightly disappointing to read that no more Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE crews were being accepted into the sixty-two-car entry for this year’s mainly thanks to the larger full season WEC entry this year and all of the outlining automatic entries from other ACO rules series and from America, all leaving little room for ad-hoc entries.
The TF Sport European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series entry from John Hartshorne is the best option as fifth reserve out of only six this year after those affected by the Russian saga were removed.
Track action at the Prologue begins from Sebring at 09:35hrs local tomorrow with the second session starting at 14:25hrs local and similarly on Sunday.
Photo credits – AMR / TF Sport / WEC
Testing times ahead! (Updated)
Testing times indeed this week but this time for all the right reasons as two headline GT series host their official pre-season test events ahead of the start of their 2022 season later this month.
Firstly and down in what has been reported as being a chilly Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France has the GT World Challenge Europe host their two-day official test with some forty-three cars taking part including one from the Beechdean Aston Martin Racing team.
Having last seen two of Andrew Howard’s Beechdean Ice Cream liveried AMR Vantage GT3's test down in Portimao a couple of weeks ago with some very ‘Pro’ drivers aboard, we knew that there was something on the cards as up until then, the AMR brand was somewhat devoid of any obvious representation within the headline European GT3 series.
In a series that has become something of a poisoned challis for the AMR brand off track, since the start of COVID-19 we have seen the demise of the R-Motorsport team altogether (with their cars and equipment now in the hands of a private collector in Germany) and most recently with the switching of allegiances to another marque by the Garage 59 team. Whilst it is obviously great to see the Beechdean AMR team back ‘strutting their stuff’ in a European arena, we are a little bemused by that considering previous remarks made to us over previous years – but then, everyone is permitted to a change of mind!!
Getting back to this week’s two-day test, Howard so far*** appears to be the only driver there with his team and their #97 car with two open sessions running per day and with this being their first organised test/track session of the year so far, it would be unfair to make too much of track times, etc.
***Team later confirmed that both 2020 GT4 European Series Champions Valentin Hasse-Clot (no stranger to the Beechdean team) and Theo Nouet completed some laps within the #97 car in addition to those of Howard.
That time will come as and when the team officially confirm their full driver line up for the six-round series (including the Spa 24) with drivers probably getting busy themselves ahead of their next set of official testing later this week at the World Endurance Championship’s Prologue over at Sebring in Florida.
The official Prologue test for the tenth year of WEC running starts this weekend around the infamous and notoriously challenging former WW2 airfield that now makes up the Sebring International raceway. With this also being the first collective running of any WEC class since the Rookie Test in Bahrain of last season, we would expect all of the teams and crews to be in attendance (even if not mandated to by Regulation) as personal and team experience around the 3.7-mile circuit would be at a premium ahead of the season opening round at the circuit less than a week later.
Three Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE crews are entered into this tenth year of running and all have already been confirmed by the team and Championship and all should be unaffected by any of this global lockdown on “Russian interests” abroad.
The #33 TF Sport entered car of Ben Keating, Marco Sorenson and Florian Latorre is back again to hopefully improve upon what Keating narrowly missed out upon last season with his P2 overall finish and they will be joined again within Tom Ferrier’s team by the Japanese D’Station Racing Vantage GTE crew of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and new third man, Charlie Fagg.
The third AMR of Northwest AMR’s Paul Dalla Lana, Nicki Thiim and David Pittard completes an expected grid that should have been of thirty-seven cars overall and thirteen in the GTE Am Class within which all three Aston’s will compete in this year but then and for the reasons already said – we do expect that number to adjust down slightly as international restrictions take effect.
We do however see that going into the Sebring opener, the AMR Vantage GTE gets a 2 litre reduction in fuel capacity compared to its last running in the Championship in Bahrain whilst the Ferrari 488 gets a 1 litre increase as does the Porsche with a 3 litre increase accordingly!!
Like the GTWCE Series above, the Prologue will also run two open sessions per day of the test.
Photo credits - GTWCE / Teams
Three AMR GTE's confirmed amongst the mighty entry of thirty seven cars for Season 10 of the WEC
Confirmation of their entry list received but still no news of the remaining missing link as three Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE’s are confirmed by the FIA for what will be Season 10 of the World Endurance Championship.
Rekindling its multi-continental race format after two years of Covid-19 related travel impact sees the two TF Sport and Northwest AMR cars confirmed within a GT class of thirteen GTE Am cars amongst a combined Hypercar/LMP2/GTE Pro and GTE Am grid of a mighty thirty-seven cars.
The #33 TF Sport prepared car of Ben Keating was the first to confirm their driver line up going into the new season as French Porsche Cup driver Florian Latorre and multiple WEC GTE Pro Champion Marco Sorensen join the Texan car dealership magnate for another stab at the GTE Am crown having come so close last season, eventually finishing in the runners up position in class.
Then we have the Canadian businessman Paul Dalla Lana returns with his own Northwest AMR labelled (but heavily Prodrive supported) race team after 2021 again slipped through his fingers. This time, he returns with the ‘big guns’ as the other half of the ‘Dane Train’ slips into the driver’s seat of the #98 car in the distinctive form of Nicki Thiim as well as being joined by the highly accredited BMW GT3 Nordschleife racer of David Pittard who joins AMR as a full season rostered driver for the first time.
These three have already tested/raced together for the first time over at the Rolex 24 last weekend at Daytona as the tight timetable going into the opening round at Sebring in just four weeks doesn’t allow for too much testing. Unfortunately, technical issues with their Vantage GTD scuppered any class winning auditions there at an early stage to the race.
D’Station Racing complete the AMR trilogy again as team boss Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii return to Tom Ferrier’s team for a second year of WEC and Asian Le Mans Series action.
Their third seat aboard their #777 remains one of many TBC’s within the entry list. Whilst the team will race with Tom Gamble over in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in their AMR Vantage GT3 later this month in the ALMS, that doesn’t make for any surety as to which silver ranked driver will partner them this time in the WEC.
First action will be at the Championship’s official test (Prologue) from the Sebring International Raceway over the 12/13th March before the WEC shares centre stage with the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship again for another double header event of top class global sportscar racing with the 1000 Miles of Sebring for the WEC runners and the Mobil 12 Hours of Sebring for the IMSA runners on the weekend after.
Photo credits – Teams / Adrenal Media
TF Sport confirm WEC driver line up for Keating's next WEC Challenge
Having done so well last season alongside co-drivers Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga to take the GTE Am Drivers Championship’s runners up position, this season’s line up shows greater intent from the American businessman as he pairs up with multiple WEC GTE Pro Champion Marco Sorenson and French Porsche Carrera Cup France racer Florian Latorre in his #33 car.
Whilst the driving abilities of Sorensen need no reminding, along a lengthy association with both Aston Martin Racing and TF Sport, Latorre comes to the team a fully enabled Porsche series race winner with experience of the Le Mans 24 having raced there last season with Proton Competition. Latorre also tested the #33 car at the FIA WEC Rookie Test in Bahrain at the end of last season.
With the WEC Season 10 starting as planned over at the Sebring IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship double header weekend in March, there is again little time for any serious amount of testing and that is again why many of the AMR WEC runners are over at Daytona this weekend and next for some early season race training – and not necessarily in an Aston as well.
This news comes on top of TF Sport’s confirmation that the #777 D’Station Racing AMR GTE for Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii will also be back with the Sussex based team for their second season in the WEC with the Aston alongside an as yet unconfirmed silver ranked driver.
This crew is also at Daytona this weekend for the Roar before the 24 Test ahead of next weekend’s Rolex 24!
Photo credits – AMR / Adrenal Media / WEC / Teams
