Qualifying had already taken place with the #89 Earl Bamber Motorsport AMR of Anderson Tanoto, Brendon Leitch and Marco Sorensen again having beaten the #19 Blackthorn AMR entry of Jason Ambrose, Claude Bovet and David McDonald to start race two in P17 and P23 respectively out of a GT class size of twenty-five.

Like yesterday, race two again started under clear, bright and very warm track conditions, although this time rain was being forecasted being the end of the race but this time, the Vantage had received an overnight BoP improvement in terms of available boost compared to that of yesterday.

The race start was also more reserved from all this time and was thankfully without the opening damage that blighted yesterday’s event for many although an early spin for the #89 car saw Tanoto drop a lap to the pack on only the second lap of the race.

More significant issues for others in class were, however, just around the corner as yesterday’s GT class winner (#57 Car Guy Ferrari) made heavy impact with the #42 Lamborghini taking both out with damage and the first caution period of the race for the resulting clean-up operation.

With that, the appearance of the #19 Blackthorn Amr of Ambrose also elevated itself onto the tail of the class leaderboard in P18 with just over half an hour done soon after the completion of the first hour had the first reports of the predicted rain. Unfortunately, with both Aston Martins running at the tail of the GT pack, there was little of note to report as the race went into its second half other than the darkness of the cloud cover above deepening.

Just the as rain actually started to fall, the races second full course yellow was thrown – this time for debris caused by a tyre failing on an LMP2 after a significant lockup. Eventually released by the Safety Car with eighty-four minutes of the race remaining, rain Sepang style finally arrived with deteriorating track condition again bringing out the Safety Car just into the final hour of the race.

The red flag was eventually called a premature end to the race as the rains hammered down around the circuit with the car collecting as per Regulation along the start straight. With the race clock still counting down, the race was eventually called with little over fifteen minutes remaining.

Despite all of the above, both Aston Martin Racing powered crews again did what several crews failed to do either today or yesterday in completing the race albeit outside of the points awarding sharp end of the table. The #89 EBM crew again beat the #19 Blackthorn crew by the end of today’s racing with a P32 overall – P18 in class finish compared to the #19’s P35 overall – P20 finish as the teams now look forward to a two-month break in the proceedings before the now customary double header double header race weekends in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi in early February.

Photo credits – Teams / series / social media

For both Anderson Tanoto aboard the #89 EBM car and Jason Ambrose aboard the #19 Blackthorn entry, their best lap times apiece were worth of at best a P17 starting position for Tanoto and P24 in class for Ambrose.

When race one finally got underway earlier today under ‘clear blue skies and sunshine’, the significance of any qualifying position was soon again demonstrated as incidences into turns 1 and 2 of the opening laps saw many cars incur damage with some even having their race ended after contact from others having been spun around through no real fault of the own.

The opening hour or so of the new season would see a plethora of Virtual Safety Car and direct Safety Car inventions take place as various incidents took place around the abrasive 3.44-mile circuit – all of which thankfully avoided the inclusion of either Aston Martin.

With some big names aboard many of the other GT Class entries, we had hoped that the #89 EBM car of Tanoto, Brenden Leitch and Marco Sorensen would have a dramatic performance advantage over the #19 Blackthorn entry of Ambrose, Claude Bovet and David McDonald although that was clearly the case as the #19 car ran a strategy programme non-reactive to track events like the EBM car did for much of the opening half of the race.

Indeed, at times, the #89 car looked quite the handful on track as whilst the undertook many a fight within class throughout the race, that was usually in defence of their position before the inevitable pass and demotion in track position despite having claimed as high as P4 at points during the race.

The #19 Blackthorn car meanwhile, sadly achieved little airtime upon the live stream from the circuit as they remained within the tail runners in class for much of the race – nothing outrageous or derogatory their considering their mixed group of drivers compared to their peers.

The race would end with just as much excitement as it started as the P3 finishing Ferrari was later adjudged to have exceeded their finishing drivers maximum drive time (albeit by just 4.5 seconds) for the #89 EBM car to finish P26 overall and P11 in class whilst the #19 finished P32 overall and P17 in class – sadly both outside the allocation of championship points.

Race two of the opening weekend takes place tomorrow (Sunday) before moving onto both Dubai and Abu Dhabi in early 2025. We still await to hear if their will be any Balance of Performance changes within the GT class ahead of race two.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Within that equation, we have both the #59 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR of Derek DeBoer, Casper Stevenson and Valentin Hasse-Clot as well as the #97 Grid Motorsport with TF AMR of Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin (and Jonny Adam) who stand just fourteen points apart from one another with twenty-six points still upon the table.

Since the end of the third round at Imola the #59 crew have held the lead of the LMGT3 class, only relinquishing that top spot after the last round from Mugello meant that the crew dropped down to second in class albeit on the same points of the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari that now head the pack.

Whilst the #59 crew have consistency to their name over the season, two class wins for the #57 crew puts the moment with the Ferrari crew going into this round after that Aston Martin could finish no higher than fifth in Italy.

The #97 crew meanwhile claimed their first podium finish of the season so far at Mugello coming home a warranted second in class despite some earlier issues.

With the class leaders sitting on 64 points and with 26 points still available, it is technically possible that the crew down in eleventh overall could secure the championship if they score maximum Qualifying and race points and those above do not score but whilst that is possible, the probability of all those above faltering is unlikely. The race will however be a least a four car drag race to the finish line on Saturday afternoon.

Looking at the series technical notes going into this final round, all four manufacturer platforms receive a further Balance of Performance adjustment from those imposed for the previous round with the AMR platforms seeing changes to their power, weight and energy parameters beyond that of their success ballast. The effects of these changes will not be noticeable to use lay men until the cars hit the track for Qualifying as before that it’s just all preparatory works.

The race will be waved off at 14:30hrs before the series officially winds up with two Rookie driver test sessions before their awards night presentation at Portimao Arena.

Joining the European Le Mans Series at Portimao will again be the Michelin Le Mans Cup Series which again sees two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 entries from the Blackthorn AMR team.

Featuring within another combined grid of thirty-nine LMP3 and GT3 based cars sees the return of Claude Bovet and David McDonald to their #91 car whilst last time out debutants (within an Aston Martin anyway) James Swift and Ross Kaiser have another go at the series within their #90 car having secured class pole position in Italy.

That class has already determined its championship pairing so that event holds no more reward that pride with a little bit of silverware for their efforts. The race gets waves off at 11:30hrs local on Saturday.

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The Heart of Racing team will also be in action within this class with a recuperating Valentin Pierburg showing Gary Newell the way around the circuit, but they will be competing with an SPS Performance prepared Mercedes AMG GT3. 

Track action begins on Wednesday morning with Free Practice 1 before Free Practice 2 later into the evening. Two Qualifying sessions Thursday morning will proceed the opening race at 18:30hrs local before race 2 on Saturday morning at 10:35hrs local before the build to the start of the 24hour race itself.

Photo credits – team / series / social media