Round two of the 2017 European GT4 Series Southern Cup took 31 cars to the historical town of Pau in south-western France for the FFSA's annual Grand Prix of Pau double header, with a night and then daytime race taking place for the GT4 series over last weekend.

As full season entries, both the Belgium team Street Art Racing and British team Generation AMR SuperRacing attended with their respective driver line up of Eric Cayrolle with Arno Santamato and Matt George and James Holder.

The #117 Street Art Racing car definitely had the advantage over the Generation Car with Cayrolle firstly originating from the town and then he and co driver Santamato also having raced French national series racing at the circuit before whereas for the #44 Generation AMR car - it would be there first racing experience of the circuit!


As expected the #117 car was the faster of the two AMR's and during Q1 Cayrolle entered the sixth quickest time of the day whilst the #44 with James Holder behind the wheel was still  coming up to speed in P29. During Q2 and with the drivers changed the gap between then was cut with the #117 still having the edge in P14 but with Matt George just a bit further back in P16.

Race 1 would make all the drivers earn their keep with a twilight start finishing in complete darkness around only a partially lit circuit but time was soon lost to a confused, false start and then a quick Safety car in the opening laps.


Cayrolle would consolidate their higher starting position whilst Holder would initially gain places as the pit window opened near the half hour mark. With Santamato now in the #117 the car did see out the pit stop cycle in first but a pit stop time transgression quickly damped any ideas of success for them.

Indeed, similar misfortunate was to befall the #44 with George have to make a second pit stop due to a high oil temperature indication.


That lead to disappointing finish for both cars with Santamato finishing P14 with the #44 the last of the runners down in P23.

More was hoped for from Sunday's lunchtime start for race 2 but more drama was to impact on the race of many cars right from the start. The first incident was at the end of the formation lap and before half of the grid had even crossed the line when a Ginetta made substantial contact with a McLaren only just behind the AMR's calling for the race's first Safety Car intervention.

Then, and only on the first racing lap after that (lap 4) did the race take a premature end for the #117 - whilst running wide around one off the hair pins a BMW collided heavily with the AMR's front offside corner damaging the steering and suspension beyond repair.


George had managed to hold station in the #44 by the car entered the pits for its compulsory stop towards the end of the pit window, handing over the car to Holder in P16. After the pit window had closed the race descended into a period of anarchy with multi incidences around the circuit leading to cars in the armco, cars in the tyre walls and pieces of bodywork flying everywhere.

Holder had managed to drive his way through this chaos up to a point where a Porsche Cayman tried to force their way past at the sweeping hairpin at turn 9 spinning the Aston (fortunately) just nose first up the grass bank and into the side of the armco at least allowing him to rejoin and finish albeit in P20.


Despite the result it was still a great spectacle to watch. The series will reconvene Dijon towards the end of June for Round 3 out of 6.

Photo credits - European GT4

Two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's will make the long trek down towards the Pyrenees for the second round of the FFSA European GT4 Series Southern Cup and the 76th running of the Pau Grand Prix.

Taking in the challenges of the incredibly tight 2.76km street circuit will be the #44 car of Generation AMR SuperRacing with James Holder and Matt George again behind the wheel as well as the #117 Street Art Racing car of Eric Cayrolle and Arno Santamto as well as thirty other GT4 cars from six manufacturers.


Between the AMR runners you might have to favour the #117 car as Cayrolle comes from Pau and neither Brit in the #44 have active racing experience of the street circuit although George has 'spannered' there on many occasions before.

With neither AMR car also fairing as well as they had hoped at the series opener at Nogaro a month ago both ail be hoping that the surprises that any street circuit can throw up can work in their favour.

"Its a very daunting place but we have confidence in the car and it will be great fun and experience to race on such a circuit. Then of course the first race goes into the night so that will be an extra challenge" Matt George told us earlier this week.

With its sister series having started about two weeks ago, this weekend shall see the start of the revitalised for 2017 French FFSA GT series running under the form of the European GT4 - Southern Cup from the Nogaro circuit near the Pyrenees border with Spain.

Mimicking its sister Northern Cup championship, the Southern Cup will also feature two full season Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4' entries in the form of one from the Belgium Street Art Racing team and one from the David Appleby Engineering company with their Generation AMR SuperRacing  car.


The #44 Generation AMR crew of James Holder and Matt George have been privately testing at the Catalunya Circuit in Barcelona prior to this weekend's event. The highly decorative #117 Street Art Racing car will be driven by French duo Eric Cayrolle and Amo Santamato.

Both cars will run in the Pro-Am class



Like the Northern Cup the event at Nogaro will feature two - one hour races with a compulsory pit stop and driver change starting and ending either side of the half way mark of the race.