It will not just be the Walkenhorst Motorsport team who will arrive at the Spa Francorchamps racetrack later this week in time for this weekend’s Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa with a spring in their step after a podium winning build up elsewhere last weekend, as the Comtoyou Racing team have done similar.

Whilst the German based Aston Martin Arcing powered team did well at the NLS with one of their AMR Vantage GT3 powered crews, the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing AMR team did better as they secured their best racing results this years within both the DTM and ADAC GT Masters Series at the fast Lausitzring in eastern Germany.

 

Having been beaten quite convincingly last time out at Zandvoort, the AMR Vantage GT3 platform clearly got a more favourable BoP adjustment this time out as Nicki Thiim secured his first AMR powered pole position of the year for race one on Saturday.

An intense rainstorm just before the start however, changed matters lightly for the #007 car of Thiim to lose out at the start before regrouping to come back with still a season best so far finish in fourth with Nicolas Baert also getting his best result to date in P16.

Qualifying ahead of race two on Sunday didn’t go quite as well as before with Thiim this time being third quickest before making use of the hot conditions at the speed oval circuit to deliver his first podium finish of the year in second with Baert in P17.

Within the supporting ADAC GT Masters Series, the teams #39 AMR Vantage GT3 of Baudouin Detout and Jamie Day also did better than last time out in Holland as the young crew improved upon their P11 starting position on Saturday to come home in P9 before rounding the weekend off with a P6 overall finish after another P11 starting

position.

 

The team and drivers (with the exception of Detout) will now compete within the Spa 24 this week as both the Walkenhorst and Comtoyou Racing teams field an AMR powered entry of six cars between them (plus the Blackthorn car as well).

Photo credits - DTM / ADAC

 

 

 

 

 

Germany will be the venue of three significant race series this weekend as both the DTM and ADAC GT Masters Series pair up again at the Lausitzring whilst the NLS Series get back underway after their annual break for the ADAC Ravenol N24 event just a few weeks.

Whilst the total entry numbers may be now considered modest compared to others, there will of course be at least one Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered crew within each as the Comtoyou Racing team again fields all three entries at the Lausitzring, it’s both the Walkenhorst Motorsport and Prosport Racing team doing the honours around the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

 

It’s the third round of the year for both the DTM and GT Masters runners and all three Comtoyou Racing AMR crews will be looking for more after a poor showing last time out around the coastal circuit of Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

Running solo as usual, the #007 car of Nicki Thiim and the #008 car of Nicolas Baert struggled to keep within the top ten at the end of both races (for Thiim) whilst Baert was again the last of those still running out of their twenty-car entry. It was a similar tail within the GT Masters Series for the #39 Vantage GT3 of Jamie Day and Baudouin Detout whose best result at Zandvoort was a P8 out of their entry of just fifteen cars.

 

Whilst the entry remains constant for DTM, the other series has seen a two car drop in numbers for this weekend.

Rounding things off in Germany will be the running of the sixth round of the 2026 Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie which sees about one hundred and ten cars listed ahead of Saturday’s four-hour race.

 

 

Now that the main event has now passed, we will just see the #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport SP9 Pro-Am entry of Mateo Villagomez, Christian Krognes and Dennis Fetzer alongside the #37 Prosport Racing SP9 Am class entry for father and son, Guido and Maxime Dumarey. Both crews will be looking to make amends to their DNF finishes at the twenty four hour race back in mid-May.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

It was a frustrating trip to the Dutch circuit of Zandvoort for the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing after they arrived earlier this week for the second rounds of both the DTM Series and the ADAC GT Masters Series.

Having already had a busy couple of days at Spa Francorchamps with their Prologue testing duties ahead of the Spa 24, it was double driving duties for all but one of their drivers and a triple stint for one of those.

 

Having raced already at the faster and wider Red Bull Ring in the opening rounds of both series, the tight and twisty coastal circuit of Zandvoort was always going to be a tall ask for their three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered runners with their available BoP never going to see their cars of either series.

Race one in DTM was uneventful for the #007 of Nicki Thiim and the #008 of Nicolas Baert as Thiim qualified and finished ninth overall whilst Baert improved from his P19 start to finish P17 within the twenty-one starters.

 

Race two also didn’t go their way after Baert suffered from another tyre failure whilst Thiim was given penalty for earlier contact which resulted in both Aston’s finishing at the rear of the pack.

Within the ADAC GT Masters Series, it was still a learning curve for Baudouin Detout as he prepared to compete in only his second competitive GT3 powered race weekend under the watchful eye of Jamie Day aboard their #39 Aston Martin.

 

Starting the weekend in sixth after Day’s earlier qualifying run, Detout would start the car before handing over the Englishman to end the busy day of Saturday P11 out of the entry of fifteen cars. Race two on Sunday would start the other way around in driver rotation with Day being able to elevate their car from its P15 starting position before handing over to Detout to eventually finish P8 overall.

The next round for both series will be from the Lausitzring in mid-June.

Photo credits – Team / Series

 

 

 

Friday saw the Janik Motorsport team continue their GT Cup Series success with another endurance race class win for the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 Evo.

This time racing at the Lausitzring at the end of a back-to-back race weekend last time out where the #73 car of Vaclav Janik and Petr Koukola secured a GT4 class P2 result at the end of that race within a race format from the Slovakia ring.

 

It was to be another class podium finish for the Czech based Janik Motorsport team as they competed with a race within a race as the GT Cup Series competed at the Slovakia Ring yesterday.

Being featured as just a three-hour endurance race, we were somewhat perplexed to see the #73 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 Evo of Vaclav Janik and Petr Koukola being listed as a DNF within that three-hour race. Subsequent news from the series confirmed that the #73 and a couple of others that had only competed within the first hour as part of the sprint commitment rather than this elongated endurance round.

The Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team continue there long string of back-to-back race weekend’s this weekend as they make a relatively short hop over the border ahead of the next round of the DTM Series from Zandvoort.

Having been in Monza last weekend for the then second round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup Series, there they suffered two separate incidences where one of their Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo’s was serious damaged – one for Antoine Potty in Free Practice and another for Kobe Pauwel at the start of Sunday’s race.

 

The second round of the German DTM Series took place at the weekend from the Lausitzring with both Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 crews again in action.

With two more-hour long races around the fast and furious tri-oval infield circuit layout, it was always going to difficult for the two still relatively inexperienced GT3 racers in Gilles Magnus and Nicolas Baert to take the race to the peers, but improvements were still needed after the disaster of the opening round from Oschersleben.

 

Twenty-four cars will compete at the Lausitzring this weekend in the second round of the German DTM Series.

Two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 cars from the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team will again be part of that entry as Nicolas Baert and Gilles Magnes again prepare to compete within this fiercely competitive solo driver series within the #7 and #8 cars respectively.

 

Championship points were certainly hard to come by at the weekend for the four Prosport Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 crews competing within this weekend’s fourth round of the ADAC GT4 Germany Series around the banked oval and infield of the Lausitzring.

Having lost the Doer Motorsport team from championship contention since the last round at the Nurburgring, AMR honours have been left to the Christoph Esser lead team and principally their #1 crew of reigning champions Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse.

 

Following on from our earlier ADAC GT4 Germany Lausitzring round preview and that only the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 cars from the Prosport Racing team were to be in attendance this weekend, the Doer Motorsport team have since shed some more light into their omission from the entry list.

It has since been confirmed that an earlier joint decision was taken within the team not to continue with their ADAC GT4 Germany commitment for their #007 entry for Ben Dorr and Theo Nouet and place those efforts into something bigger and demanding of them till season end.

 

This time, only four Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews enter this weekend’s fourth round of the ADAC GT4 Germany Series from the Lausitzring as the Doer Motorsport entry prepares themselves for another twelve-hour adventure around the Nordschliefe next month.

That leaves ‘just’ the four entries from the Prosport Racing team to fly the flag again having enjoyed something of a special event last time out at their local Nurburgring circuit earlier in the month where both the #1 and #48 car each returned with class silverware for their efforts.

 

It’s been a very busy few weeks for the Team Speed Monkeys crew, what with their existing full season DTM Trophy commitments being doubled up by their new two car entry into the remaining rounds of the ADAC GT4 Germany Series, and this weekend is no different as they venture across to the Norisring for the third round of the DTM support series.

 

This weekend’s second round of the 2022 DTRM Trophy form Imola proved itself to be a very successful one for the Team Speed Monkeys team as their youngest driver took two podium finishes to bolster his Championship standing.

With both Nick Hancke and Jacob Riegel showing something of what is possible from the teams two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s at the opening round of the season from Oschersleben at the end of April, it was Riegel who ‘took the bull by the horns’ in Italy to take two P2 finishes plus a pole position in Sunday’s race to round off a near perfect weekend for him.

 

Two highly charged and energetic rounds from the Lausitzring at the weekend kicked off the 2022 DTM Trophy Series with its two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews aboard.

Featuring two young and new to GT4 racing drivers, German Based Team Speed Monkeys are also new to the AMR platform itself after only taking delivery of its one used and one new car earlier this year but in time for a decent amount of pre-season testing.

 

The DTM Trophy finally kicks off its 2022 season this weekend as the GT4 grid competes at the Lausitzring to the south of Berlin.

Last season we had the PROsport Racing team compete in what turned out to be an unfortunate experience for them and their drivers which quickly resulted in them leaving the series after just a couple of rounds.