The Racing Spirit of Leman crew of Victor Weyrich and Mateo Villagomez did their own and team championship aspirations no harm at all over the weekend at the latest round of the FFSA GT4 Series from Magny-Cours.

This time running with no teammates with the #92 Am class entry of Clement Dub and Ronald Basso being absent from the event, the silver pairing went on to dominate their class again although the #74 car never had things all their own way from an overall race result perspective.

It’s been a productive day for the two Aston Martin Racing Vantage powered teams entered into this weekend’s 24H Series 12 Hours of Misano.

Not having any AMR powered crew compete within a Creventic organised event for some time, it was great to see both the Street Art Racing team return to the series within one of their 17A variants of the Vantage GT4 as well as Prime Speed Sport reach out from New Zealand with their new Earl Bamber Motorsport prepared Vantage GT3.

Two Aston Martin Racing powered crews appear on the entry list ahead of next weekend’s 24H Series visit to Misano in Italy.

‘Long time no see’ as far as Aston Martin powered teams are concerned within the Creventic Series, next weekend will see a further ad-hoc showing from the Belgian based Street Art Racing team with one of the Vantage GT4 platforms after they ran a ‘warm up’ event for drivers Pascal Bachmann and Jahid Fazal Karim at the last round of the FFSA GT4 Series at Spa Francorchamps. These two will be joined by Julien Darras.

 

Joining the five Aston Martin Racing powered teams of the British GT Championship at Spa Francorchamps this weekend will be (sadly) just three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 cars of the supporting FFSA GT4 Series.

Once operating with grids with high numbers of Aston Martin’s, the French national series has seen an unfortunate decline in like-minded racing teams (and customer drivers) to where we see just three full season crews entered alongside one local returnee with their older generation of Vantage platform.

Whilst there was celebration within two Aston Martin Racing powered teams after Championship winning success in both the ADAC GT4 Germany and Michelin Le Mans Cup Series, there were also the complete opposites within another two as they were left to contemplate upon what might have been.

In Japan, the D’Station Racing team again fielded it Aston Martin Vantage GT8R within the penultimate round of their domestic Super Taikyu Series at Okayama. Needing nothing less than a class win to keep their ST-1 Class hopes alive, the #47 car of Tatsuya Hoshino, Max Orido, Kenji Hama, and Jake Parsons again came second to the #2 KS Frontier KTM X-Bow crew at the end of that three-hour race.

 

Two closely tied Aston Martin Racing teams complete our weekend’s worth of racing as the Street Art Racing team attend the Red Bull Ring in Austria for the latest round of GT Open whilst the whilst the Into Africa Racing team will be back out with their car at the latest round of the G&H Extreme Super Cars Series in South Africa.

 

Belgian Aston Martin Racing team, Street Art Racing left the Paul Ricard circuit in France with broad smiles upon their faces yesterday after their best performances to date within both the International GT Open and GT Cup Open Series.

Fielding both a Vantage GT3 for Pascal Bachman and Jahid Fazal Karim in the Am Class of the GT Open Series as well as a Vantage GT4 for Jayan Fazal Karim and Julien Darras within the Trophy Class of the supporting GT Cup Open Series, the GT3 finished the weekend with their best overall performances to date with a P11 and P9 in class finish whilst the GT4 crew left with two class wins and the silverware to go with such an accolade. 

 

Two further race events round off the Aston Martin Racing powered customer and Partner team commitments this weekend with the return of the GT Open Series from the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France and a six-hour, non-championship round of the British Endurance Championship/Britcar series from Donington Park.

In France, the Belgian based Street Art Racing AMR team return for the fourth round of the series with team backer, Jahid Fazal-Karim returning to the driver’s seat of his #007 AMR Vantage GT3 that he shares with Pascal Bachman.

 

Rounding off last weekend’s Aston Martin Racing powered affairs had the two Street Art Racing Vantage GT3 and GT4 crews take to the track for the opening rounds of the GT Open and GT Open Cup from Portimao.

Within the teams colourful Vantage GT3 was the former GT4 European Series Am Class Champion Pascal Bachmann return to the series for his second season but this time with a co-driver in Jahid Fazal-Karim having raced solo for the events that he attended last year.

 

The International GT Open and GT Cup Open Europe kick off their opening rounds to their 2023 season this weekend with a sizeable contingent of GT3 race cars within the GT Open and a growing number of GT4 based cars within the other.

Thirty-three GT3 cars to be exact, will travel down to the Autodromo de Internacional do Algarve near Portimao for their traditional Saturday and Sunday, pit stop punctuated races for entries competing within their Pro, Pro-Am and Am classes.

 

Belgium based Street Art Racing have tonight announced their latest Aston Martin Racing Vantage art car that will compete this time within the GT Open Cup Series alongside that of the recently announced Vantage GT3 within the GT Open Series.

The fifth art car creation from the Albert Bloem led team, this GT4 entry will be a parallel effort for Jetcraft boss Jahid Fazal-Karim alongside driver coach Julian Darras and will be in addition to Jahid’s GT3 efforts alongside Pascal Bachmann.

 

The Street Art Racing team entered into both the GT Open and GT Open Cup Series finish off another busy weekend of Aston Martin Racing customer racing this time around as they see out their respective seasons from the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain.

Having skipped rounds throughout the season due to prior business engagements for their gentleman drivers, the team returned to racing at the last round at Monza, a move that proved fruitful for Pascal Bachmann in his Vantage GT3 in the GT Open Series but rather painful for Jahid Fazal-Karim in his Vantage GT4 in the sister series.

 

Street Art Racing’s return to the GT Open and GT Open Cup Series at Monza at the weekend came with a bruising encounter for their GT4 gentleman driver whereas their GT3 driver came away with something totally unexpected.

Back in the series after skipping two previous rounds due to prior business engagements, the Pascal Bachmann driven Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 entered the main GT Open Series as a solo Am classed driver kept his #007 car firmly rooted to the black stuff whilst others were not during the deluge that marred Saturdays opening round to come away with an opportunist P3 in class for his efforts.

 

The Belgian based Street Art Racing team make a return to the GT Open Series for their penultimate round of the season from the Temple of Speed at Monza in Italy.

Featuring amongst another grid of twenty-four comparable GT3 race cars, the bespoke liveried #007 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Swiss driver Pascal Bachmann makes a timely return to the series after business kept him and the team away from the race track over the previous round.

For those of you who may have missed it, the entry list for this weekend’s GT Open Series visit to the Red Bull Ring in Austria again omits both Street Art Racing’s two Aston Martin Racing Vantage entries.

It was something very much of a trying weekend for the Belgian based Street Art Racing team as they travelled to the fourth round of the GT Open Series and third round of the GT Cup Open Series from the Hungaroring, Hungary.

Having been forced again to skip the last round of the season at their local track of Spa Francorchamps a month ago, this weekend was only their second outing in the series with their respective Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 and GT4 race cars for their trio of drivers Pascal Bachmann, Julian Darras and Jahid Fazal-Karim.

Having never raced or tested at the circuit prior to the weekend, the team was immediately on the ‘back foot’ as a belated birthday celebration with the team prior to the event left the Swiss gentleman driver very much ‘under the weather’ going into the weekend – so much so that he decided to employ the racing services of Darras within his Vantage GT3 to firstly lessen his own workload within his car (as otherwise competing as a solo driver) and to get some sort of return for the cost of travelling there as well as some reward for previous services towards Darras.

For this round only though, the #007 SAR Vantage GT3 wasn’t the sole Aston Martin competing as the locally based GFS Motorsport’s V12 Vantage GT3 was also in attendance with driver Janos Santa.

With the newer variant of the AMR GT3 always chasing a viable race set up around the low grip, low passing opportunity circuit as well as the older variant simply not having the power available from its V12 engine to compete, both races proved to be frustrating exercises for the two solo Am based drivers in their GT3 cars.

Whilst Darras did compete within the #007 car in their reclassified Pro-Am class, to arrive and drive your first GT3 race was sadly for him something that didn’t transpire into a memorable experience as in the first race, contact with the #11 directly lead to the cars downfall on the very last lap.

Similar experiences were had by Darras and his gentleman driver Fazal-Karim after their green liveried #007 car showed the signs of front-end contact during the opening half of the first race of the GT Cup Open Series. Despite the teams Aston Martin being the sole non-Porsche platform in the series again, the driving capabilities of their Am driver so far has not yet progressed enough for them to be race contenders.

For their efforts, the #27 GFS Aston Martin was certainly the most consistent with an overall P18 and P20 finishes over the two races but with the #007 GT3 improving upon their DNF of race 1 to finish P16 overall in Sunday’s shorter race.

The next round of the two series will be at the Red Bull Ring in Austria for the GT3’s in early September before onto Monza for both series later that month.

Photo credits – GT Open / Open Cup / Team