As far as any Aston Martin Racing powered runner maybe concerned, this weekend’ 79th edition of the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa Francorchamps must go down as one of the most brutal of events experienced as far as their multi-car entry was concerned.

Already running around the Belgian circuit within some of the hottest and prolonged weather conditions that northern Europe had experienced in many years, a starting grid size of nearly seventy cars and over one hundred and thirty thousand fans still packed into the circuit to see this latest SRO Blue Ribband event that still forms part of both the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup Series and the Intercontinental GT Challenge Series.

 

There were seven AMR Vantage GT3 powered crews entered this time around – four from the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team, two from the German Walkenhorst Motorsport team and one from the British Ecurie Ecosse by Blackthorn teams and all fielding crews which has a distinct chance at either overall or class wins at the end.

 

Starting this year’s event in the mid-afternoon but with ambient temperatures well into the forties, it nearly went absolutely disastrously for the Walkenhorst team as both of their Pro and Silver class entries were involved in a lap one incident with multiple other cars. Whilst the #34 car of Jamie Day was seen spinning through the air on one-maybe two wheels only to land the correct way around and seemly able to continue, the same couldn’t be said for their #35 car of Maxime Robin. Already suffering from front end damage from an immediately earlier contact, the car was then seen to make further and heavier contact with the car that caused the incident and for them – that was the day done already.

 

Over the next few hours and throughout the early onset of multiple Safety Car periods, the Walkenhorst and Christian Krognes were able to elevate the #34’s race position to within the top ten overall despite whatever damage had to be dealt with over multiple stops.

After the early incidents, all continued at a pace for the AMR powered runners until the early hours of the night-time running when the #21 Comtoyou Racing AMR of Sebastian Baud was caught dropping a wheel off the kerb and into the gravel. That was unfortunately enough to put the silver class entry into a tank slapping spin that finally saw the car impacting (thankfully) backwards into the tyre wall and into immediate retirement. Baud’s condition was also quickly confirmed as being bruised and deflated but otherwise but that incident would end up being the beginning of the end for the green liveried cars within the race.

 

The #11 bronze entered car was next to be eliminated from the race before the then Pro-Am class leading #700 car guesting driver Sarah Bovey was witnessed to leave the track and impact heavily into the tyre wall on the outside of Blanchemont – again another car destroying impact that thankfully still allowed Bovey to exit the vehicle under her own power.

If that couldn’t get any worse for the team – it did, as in the early hours of Sunday morning a rare mistake from Nicki Thiim saw the Dane lose control of his #7 car coming up from Eau Rouge and into Raidillon – for the car to spin and nose sufficiently heavy enough into the barrier to end their race. Up until that time, the #7 car had been present within the top ten overall for much of the race and on the lead lap too but for this year there would be no return to the winners podium.

 

The #56 Ecurie Ecosse by Blackthorn AMR was also not out of the wars as their four-man driver line up battled their was up from their lowly starting position overall and within their bronze cup entry. Already carrying many battle scars, the car was also seen pulling into their garage bay with only three wheels attached at the time and with a small carbon fire on the splitter in their urgency to get back to racing. They would eventually finish P32 overall and P6 in class.

 

The true heroes were however, the #34 crew of Jamie Day, Christian Krognes and Henrique Chaves as well as the Walkenhorst team who helped elevate the car from plumb last on lap one to finish comfortably within the top 10 to claim an overall P7 result for their efforts. Who knows, one or two penalties less for track limits and they could have been higher!!

What a great event (considering)!!

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

If those woods are the trees that surround the 7km Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, you certainly will be in for a very big surprise as over seventy top-flight GT3 cars and crews now settle themselves down at the circuit for this weekend’s Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa.

Not only functioning as the third round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup or even the third round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge Series, but this race also contains a few wild card or guest entries amongst them that will certainly spice things up come the green flag on Saturday.

 

We of course feature six full season Aston Martin Racing powered entries into the GTWCE Endurance Cup Series from the likes of the locally based Comtoyou Racing team, the German based Walkenhorst Motorsport team as well as a solo effort from the British based Ecurie Ecosse with Blackthorn as automatic entries into this event but we will also see a further (fourth) entry from the Comtoyou Racing team full of national importance.

The bronze ranked drivers enjoyed their first track action of the week earlier today (after a collective private test for all) with the #11 Comtoyou squad of Marcelo Tomasoni/Aaron Muss/Kyle Marcelli and Felice Jelmini had a few of their drivers eligible for that session as did the #56 Ecurie Ecosse by Blackthorn AMR of Giacomo Petrobelli/Jonny Adam/Lorcan Hanafin and Romain Leroux. We are, however, saddened to see the likes of Tom Wood miss out on his previously indicated drive within the #56 car despite previous confirmation by the team and series.

 

Next up the order are the two silver classed entries from both the Belgian and German teams in the form of Oliver Soderstrom/Kobe Pauwels/Sebastian Baud and Arthur Dorison aboard the #21 Comtoyou Racing entry with Mateo Villagomez/Than Ischer/Gaspard Simon and Maxime Robin aboard the #35 Walkenhorst AMR Vantage GT3.

Each team then field a Pro class entry apiece with former race winners Nicki Thiim/Marco Sorensen and Mattia Drudi looking to make for being taken out of the last race event at Monza very late on and without fault after some very poor driving standards had been on display whilst the Walkenhorst will field Henrique Chaves/ Christian Krognes and Jamie Day aboard their #34 entry.

 

That leaves the all-Belgian effort from the Belgian bases team as Nicolas Baert Xavier Knauf, Sarah Bovey and Gregory Servais join forces for this one-off event within their #700 Pro-Am entry.

Tomorrows significant event will be the annual car, and drivers parade and autograph session within the two centre of Spa with all the cars making their own way to and from the circuit along the public roads. After that, things become much more serious with two Free Practice sessions on Thursday ahead of Qualifying and night practice later on before Superpole for the front runners later on Friday.

 

The race itself will be waved off at 16:30hrs local on Saturday. What isn’t there to like about any of that?

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second rounds of the German based DTM and ADAC GT Masters Series take place this weekend from the Dutch coastal circuit of Zandvoort with the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team back in action within each series.

For the programme heading DTM Series, the team will be back with their two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo’s as Nicki Thiim carries on his incredibly busy week that started over a week ago in fact during the earlier Qualification stages of the ADAC Ravenol N24, through the twenty-four-hour race itself before moving onto Spa Francorchamps earlier this week for some Crowdstrike Spa 24 testing.

 

Whilst the Dane drives his #007 car, the sister #008 car will again be driven by Nicolas Baert having also attended Spa for the two-day Prologue test with the team.

First time out this season in the series was at the Red Bull Ring, Austria back in late April where a difficult opening qualifying session and later Race 1 was improved upon on the second day where Thiim finished P5 overall and Baert P17.

 

This weekend will see another difficult weekend for the AMR Vantage platform in terms of power characteristics around the tight and twisty circuit where the teams only data from last season saw both cars finish at the tail of the pack. This weekend’s entry list also shows another nineteen strong entry (21 cars in total) for the two one-hour races.

Joining them at the circuits will be the fifteen-car entry of the ADAC GT Masters Series with the Comtoyou Racing team also fielding another AMR Vantage GT3 Evo powered crew within that series.

 

Their #39 entry of Jamie Day and Baudouin Detout will take on only their second race together in their silver class.

Last time out for these guys in Austria saw Day secure a front row start for race 1 for them to finish eighth before dropping down to P10 in race two for what was still Detout’s first competitive GT3 racing weekend.

 

This weekend will be fast and furious for sure!

Photo credits – Teams / Series

 

 

 

 

 

The hectic back-to-back race weekends of the 2025 continue at an unabated pace this weekend for the Comtoyou Racing and Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Racing teams as both travel to the Temple of Speed for the latest round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

 

It’s another hellishly busy race week for the SRO organisation as they see both their European and North American arms of the business in full race mode this week at Spa, Zandvoort and Sebring.

Having already covered the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup Prologue events at Spa Francorchamps with today's and tomorrow's Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa Prologue test days, their European Sprint Cup and GT4 European Series sees themselves back in business this weekend with their second rounds of the season from the Dutch coastal circuit.

 

Today’s provisional entry list for the forthcoming Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa at the end of June sees a record number seventy-six cars competing within the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup’s five available classes togther with an increase in the number of Aston Martin Racing powered runners to boot.

Running both today and tomorrow at the Spa Francorchamps circuit as part of their annual pre-event Prologue test saw all bar six of those seventy-six take part in today’s morning and afternoon track sessions but with all eight AMR powered crews in attendance.