Aston Martin recorded two class victories in the 77th running of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on Sunday, in front of 128,000 spectators, as Vantage achieved an unprecedented level of success in the famous Belgian endurance classic. The British ultra-luxury high performance brand, which won the race outright in 2024 with its Vantage GT3, added to its legacy of glory at the venue with victories in the Gold and Silver Cup classes and runner-up in the Pro-Am division; the best collective result for the Wings in the GT3-era of the event.

Partner team Verstappen Racing, and its drivers Thierry Vermeulen, Harry King and Chris Lulham delivered a brilliant debut 24-hour race performance with their Aston Martin Vantage GT3 finishing ninth overall, ahead of several Pro Class contenders, and overcoming a fierce challenge from a rival McLaren in the second half of the race to win the Gold Cup Class.

Having just completed a two-day Prologue Test at the Circuit ahead of the Crowdstrike Spa 24 Hour race at the end of June, the locally based Comtoyou Racing team will be back at Spa Francorchamps circuit this weekend for what might not just be a one-off event.

Entering one of the new 2024 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s, the team have entered their two latest and youngest drivers Matisse Lismont and Lorens Lecertua into this weekend’s visit by the International GT Open Series.

 

Whilst the British GT Championship and FFSA GT4 Series get their first private test session under their belts to start off the SRO Speedweek this weekend from the Spa Francorchamps circuit today, we now take a look at the headline act of next weekend – that of the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa.

This year’s seventy fourth edition of the Belgian Endurance classic that starts next weekend again sees itself as the third round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup after previous rounds at both Imola and most recently at Paul Ricard. 

Three beautiful cars, two days around one of the best racetracks in the world saw the Total Energies 24 Hours of Spa Official Test conclude today with both the Beechdean AMR and Heart of Racing with TF Sport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 crews putting in the necessary set-up mileage ahead of the main event scheduled for the end of July.

News came late of the partnership between TF Sport and American IMSA team, the Heart of Racing to enter another AMR into the SRO’s flagship and premier GT3 event for ‘their’ drivers Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas alongside TF’s own resident ‘pocket rocket’ Charlie Eastwood in another Pro class entry to go alongside that of the #95 Beechdean AMR Pro car of Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorenson and Maxime Martin.

 

Split fortunes this weekend for the Garage 59 Aston Martin Racing team as they visited the coastal circuit of Zandvoort for the second round of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Series.

Having enjoyed the warmth and of Many-Cours first time out at the beginning of May, torrential rain over the circuit on Friday put paid to the warm temperatures and sunshine leading up to the event and also tossed the race timetable at the track up into the air as many sessions were cut short or even abandoned as the water levels rose around the track.

After the thrills and spills of Spa Francorchamps the week before last comes this weekend's penultimate round of the 2019 British GT Championship around the full Grand Prix circuit of Brands Hatch in Kent.

For a quarter of the Aston Martin Racing customer team contingent, Spa was a silverware winning success with Optimum Motorsport's Ollie Wilkinson and Bradley Ellis taking a convincing lights to flag overall win in their AMR Vantage GT3 which was backed up over in the GT4 class with the top and third placed steps of that podium being occupied by the two TF Sport AMR Vantage GT4's of Tom Canning/Ashley Hand and Patrick Kibble/Josh Price respectively.


For many of the usual AMR runners, last weekend also included their participation in the Blancpain GT's 24 Hours of Spa where TF Sport came away with a Pro-Am overall win in the car that Jonny Adam and Graham Davidson normally race in British GT. For those two individuals, Spa was extremely painful in two ways as Adam's Garage 59 AMR was forced into early retirement with mechanical issues whilst Davidson ended up in the local hospital following an accident in the Lamborghini that he was sharing. Thankfully, Davidson has already confirmed that he will be fully fit to race again at Brands Hatch after observation and treatment to his elbow following a side on impact with the crash barrier at Spa.

As for their Vantage GT3, the short travelling distance between Spa to base and then base to Brands Hatch will give TF Sport sufficient time to re-fettle the car back into its BGT guise from the Oman Racing colours it was called up to race in last weekend. Nicki Thiim should be 'full of beans' after his part in the teams class win at Spa!!!


Also being busy before the event has been the Academy Motorsport team who have needed to re-shell their #61 car that Micah Stanley and Ben Hurst race in the Championship after the car suffered extensive front end damage in the previous GT4 European race at Zandvoort after a recklessly instigated crash took out six other cars even before the cars had passed the start line on the opening lap for that series driver Fiona James. For Spa, team boss Matt Nicol Jones moved mountains to allow both Stanley and Hurst to race in a borrowed McLaren 570s GT4 but that duo suffered the misfortune of yet another DNF.

Beechdean AMR are back in the news again for this weekend after having skipped the Spa round of the Championship due to their commitments in the Michelin Le Mans Cup down in Barcelona last weekend. We had hoped that the speed merchant Marco Sorensen would be back in the hot seat of the #99 car alongside Andrew Howard having missed also missed the previous round at Donington Park in late June following his heavy accident at Le Mans in the AMR factory GTE.


Despite the Dane testing for the factory at Barcelona only last week (for reasons soon to be made clear) Sorensen will again miss this round for his place to be taken by former Prosport Performance ADAC GT Masters drive Valentin Hasse Clot.

In terms of Championships stakes - some classes could be determined this weekend whilst the remainder will go on to continue the hashtag #DoningtonDecider for yet another year, all clearly demonstrating just how competitive and open this GT Championship remains.


Ahead the head in GT3 Silver Cup and third overall in GT3 is the #96 Optimum crew of Wilkinson and Ellis now just 16 points behind the Championship leading Lamborghini with the TF Sport crew of Adam and Davidson just behind the #96 P4 overall and P3 in GT3 Pro-Am. In GT4, Canning and Hand moved themselves up to P3 in the overall GT4 stakes nw just 7.5 points behind the leaders whilst they now take the Championship lead in the GT4 Silver Cup from the Multimatic Ford.

In GT4 Pro-Am, a technical issue at Spa cost the #11 Beechdean AMR GT4 crew of Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher some additional points that now sees their class lead now cut to just half a point with the two rounds remaining.


For the others, Brands Hatch will become a question of boosting pride and potential for a return to the series next year rather than Championship standings. Certainly, the twisting and turning characteristics of the Brands circuit will help for some more nose to tail racing with plenty of incident and action (hopefully not accident) as each of the #96, #95 and #97 cars get hit with success pit penalties in the midst of Sundays 2 hour race.

Looking forward to it!!

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey / PROsport Performance

Racing at Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium in support of the Total Spa 24H last weekend was the French FFSA GT4 Championship holding their fourth round out of six in their 2019 calendar.

Competing amongst that thirty eight car field was the #44 David Appleby Engineering prepared Generation AMR SuperRacing Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 with Matt George behind the wheel.


Normally competing in the GT4 European Series alongside James Holder, this is the first time one of the new iteration of turbo charged Vantage GT4's has competed within the French National GT series and what an impact George made.

Having raced around the infamous 7km Belgium circuit the weekend before in the teams Jaguar GT4 as part of the British GT Championship, George Qualified their plain black #44 car in P2 and P4 respectively for each of the two one hour races over the weekend. Despite having to endure an additional 20 second of pit stop penalty for being a lone driver, George converted these front end starting positions to complete each race in P3 overall.



Considering the high air and track temperatures of Fridays race and the cooler wet conditions of Saturdays race and as a lone driver - that is a fantastic achievement.

Photo credits - FFSA GT

The seventy first running of the Spa 24 Hour at the weekend again never failed to disappoint in terms of the racing spectacle that seventy odd current specification GT3 race cars thundering around the seven kilometre circuit would always create, although there was of course always disappointment for some whenever the track decided to snap back.

Seventy one years since the last outright win by an Aston Martin at the event, this years six car entry of the new generation Aston Martin Racing V8 Turbo Vantage GT3 was the biggest from the marque in recent years and would hopefully give all the three full Pro car entries their best chance yet. As well as these cars there were entries into the remaining Pro-Am, Silver Cup and Am classes so all bases were covered.


After the customary trip down to Spa Francorchamps town for the car and drivers parade, things on track didn't exactly get off to a good start for the #97 Oman Racing with TF Sport team in Pro-Am after Salih Yoluc suffered a sizeable front end accident in Free Practice that would otherwise write off their car. Thanks to the team also having already raced at the circuit on the previous weekend in the latest round of the British GT Championship, they at least retained a spare chassis at the track which they quickly changed over in time for that to be ready for Qualifying.

By the time the Qualifying process had panned out on Thursday and Friday, there would be top twenty starting positions for all three Pro cars plus either P3 or P4 starts in the Silver Cup, Pro-Am and Am classes. For the #97 Oman Racing car, that would convert into a pit lane start due to their chassis change after the commencement of officially timed track activities.


Race morning on Saturday also heralded the expected change in meteorological conditions at the circuit with the intense 40 deg C sunshine of Tuesday and Wednesday being replaced with persistent rainfall and much cooler air and track temperatures.

With the race starting behind the Safety Car, one of the first cars to fall was unfortunately the leading AMR Pro car of Jonny Adam in the #59 Garage 59 car that he shared with Come Ledogar and Andrew Watson. A seized from hub was the problem and despite the best of efforts from the crew time was ultimately called on that car still inside the first hour of racing and for the second race this year, two of their drivers would see no actual race mileage.


Throughout the constant stream of Full Course Yellow and other race control and intervention that followed as the race attested to gain momentum, the #59 car was soon followed by the (eventual) confirmed retirements of both the #62 Pro car from and #762 Silver Cup entries from R-Motorsport. The #62 suffered from race ending accident damage to the rear after Matt Parry spun out at Stavelot whilst the #762 suffered from similar effects after an accident induced by others. Three cars out even before nightfall - that would normally have been considered as something of a disaster had it not have been for the remaining three cars then having a race of the lives with the #76 in the top 10 overall and both the #97 and #188 leading their respective Pro-Am and Am classes respectively.


The ever changing track conditions made for some difficult strategy calls as first a dry line appeared with slicks being the tyre of choice) quickly followed with more rain and full wets again required as night fell and the track lit up with another magnificent firework display.


At the 1/3rd distance - the #76 R-Motorpsort car was up to P5 with Alex Lynn cycling through the three man line up of himself, Jake Dennis and Marvin Kirchhofer whilst Nicki Thiim, then aboard the #97 car had moved up to P17 overall with the car that started from the pit lane. The #188 Garage 59 Am class car of Chris Harris was sitting comfortably for the conditions in P2 with their battle with Barwell just ahead after great work from Alex West, Ross Gunn and Chris Goodwin.

Then, after fourteen hours of racing under almost a constant stream of rain, FCY's and Safety Car periods to clean up various smashes around the circuit during the early hours of Sunday morning, the race was finally red flagged by Race Control due to the existing and forecasted weather conditions that were then swamping the circuit. Lessons learned from previous years coming into force and there didn't appear to be too many voices of discontent with that decision.


With cars now returned to the pits and garages under Parc Ferme conditions, that gave time for many to catch some sleep and barrier repairs to be made with the race not expected to resume much before midday local time.

With the race left down to a three to hour hour sprint to the flag the only AMR's left in contention for a prize was the #97 Oman Racing car and the #188 Garage 59 car after the #76 R-Motorpsort car had lost large amounts of time during the night with an incorrectly fitted tyre and wheel. The car was still in the race but too far behind to have time to made amends.


Late disappointment however came to the #188 Garage 59 car after Goodwin was collected from the rear by another car damaging the Aston's rear suspension. Despite getting the car home and repaired, that lost time would lose them their hold on a class podium although it did credit Harris with his first ever Spa 24 race finish.

That left the #97 Oman Racing with TF Sport AMR Vantage to fly the flag for the marque as AMR factory driver Nicki Thiim nursed a two lap lead to take the Pro-Am class win at the chequered flag in something of a very bedraggled and battle scared race car.


In addition to the race win, the points haul earned by Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Ahmad Al Harthy at the 6,12 and 24hour marks elevates them into the overall class lead in the Championship with just the final round of the season at Barcelona outstanding.

Whilst it may not have been the overall race win that had been yearned for, a class win at the toughest GT3 race in the world is nothing to be sniffed at. For Garage 59 and R-Motorsport, they both have the depth and ability to pick themselves up from their hardships in Belgium to race again another day.


For others however, their next race is just this weekend at Brands Hatch for the penultimate round of the British GT Championship.

2019 busy busy busy still ...................!!!

Photo credits - Blancpain / TF Sport / Garage 59 / R-Motorsport

Aston Martin has claimed victory in the Pro-Am class of a rain-interrupted 2019 TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa, after a brilliant performance by partner team TF Sport Racing with Oman with the new Vantage GT3. It was the maiden win in a 24-hour race for Aston Martin Racing's new customer-focussed machine and also the first for the British sportscar marque since the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup event became a GT3-only competition.

TF Sport's triumph was made all the more remarkable given the team started from the pitlane, following Salih Yoluc's huge practice accident at Raidillon, which forced it to rebuild and use a regular British GT Championship chassis for the race. The driver crew, including Aston Martin Racing works driver Nicki Thiim (DEN), Ahmad Al Harthy (UAE) Yoluc (TUR) and Charlie Eastwood (IRL), recovered 50 positions to finish 22nd overall, a lap clear of its nearest class rival. For Thiim it was also a personal landmark; this was his third major 24-race class win, adding to his 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours GTE Am victory and his 2017 Nürburgring 24 Hours SP8 class win.