Last time out at Losail circuit in the desert, both Aston Martin crews earned their way onto the podium of the LMGT3 class with the #27 Heart of Racing crew of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli claimed second with the #777 D’Station Racing AMR of Marco Sorensen, Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard claiming the final step of the podium in what was a debut event for the 2024 Vantage in LMGT3 configuration.

This time, both teams go into this second round with crucially more data about their cars as well as about data of their Goodyear tyres – but then, so does everyone else racing new to their class or with new race car derivatives for the season.

Both AMR teams are also somewhat stretched within their own organisations as the North America based Heart of Racing team also have racing commitments this weekend in both IMSA and GT America from Long Beach California, whilst the Japanese D’Station Racing team are also busing in Malaysia with the opening round of the GT World Challenge Asia Series in Sepang. Both teams are however, again assisted by many of those from within the Prodrive AMR factory in Banbury.

Whilst today has been all about checks, briefings, PR duties and later a driver parade within the town, the first track action will start tomorrow with two ninety-minute Free Practice Sessions before going into a third sixty-minute Free Practice session on Saturday morning before class Qualifying later in the afternoon.

The start of this six-hour race will be at 13:00hrs on Sunday.

Since the last round, there have obviously been changes to the Balance of Performance to the cars in both classes with changes to the Vantage LMGT3’s power to weight ratios (as with other OEM platforms) but also with the application of success ballast for their podium finishes in the form of +10kg to the declared base weight of the #27 car and +5kg to the #777.

Photo credits – Team / social media / D Gibson / AMR

As previously announced by the Snetterton based team, their #9 entry will be made up of karter and GT4 novice Matthew Higgins racing alongside former Ginetta and now upcoming GT4 star Mikey Porter who's already made his mark within both the GT4 Winter Series and British GT Championship. 

The team’s #10 car will be an all-female affair with Jodie Sloss returning to the Championship for a second season from her McLaren exploits of last season whilst we all welcome Kiwi racer and former Heart of Racing GT4 America racer Rianna O’Meara-Hunt to the UK for the first time.

Both crews will be competing within the teams two older 17A iteration of the AMR Vantage GT4 as all crews look forward to another seven-round season with four races over each weekend.

Photo credits – Team / social media

 

The team also recently confirmed plans to enter one of the new 2024 Vantage GT4’s into competition once that has been received from Prodrive ahead of an Iberian Supercars season opener from Jerez at the end of May.

Photo credits – Team / Series

That means it’s just the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GTD car this time but that car will also see a revised driver line up alongside regular driver Roman De Angelis as a team three-way obligation this weekend sees his regular co-driver of Marco Sorensen back in Europe on World Endurance Championship duty with the Japanese D’Station Racing team, so the team have ‘borrowed’ fellow AMR driver Spencer Pumpelly from the Magnus Racing team for this event.

Joining them this time will be the Flying Lizard team entry for Elias Sabo and Andy Lee who participate at this event as a one off due to them also taking part within the event supporting GT America Series with their Vantage GT4.

Having stepped up to GT3 within the GT World Challenge America Series this season, that season opener from Sonoma didn’t go as they had hoped so this IMSA event will give Sabo both seat time around the tight street circuit layout and the taste for further race programs moving forward.

Then in GT America itself, five Aston Martin Racing crews are listed although only the fellow Flying Lizard entry of Jason Bell within the SRO3 (GT3) class with the others running GT4.

Having also stepped up to GT3 this season, reigning GT4 champion Bell is their because Long Beach is the second round of that series having ran at Sonoma a couple of weeks ago. He too didn’t run as high as he might have hoped within the opening round so again, Long Beach is more seat time – more potential to learn and improve.

Joining them both in GT4 is Flying Lizard teammate Todd Parriott in the #13 car, alongside Todd Coleman in his #69 Archangel car and Gray Newell in his #25 Heart of Racing entry.

Within GT4, the Sonoma was a profitable exercise as both Newell and Coleman secured podium finishes with Coleman getting the boast that he deserved (after recent IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge misfortune) with a third and second in class in California last time out.

This round will again feature two forty-minute races.

Photo credits – Teams / series / social media

While James and Riberas will be making their debut at the Imola Circuit, Mancinelli is no stranger to the circuit, having raced at the track for over a decade.

“After the great second place in Qatar I’m heading into the Imola race weekend very excited for two reasons,” said Mancinelli. “Firstly because we all know that our expectations will be high again competing for the podium. Secondly it will be my home race, Imola is a race track which I used to race at since when I first started racing back in 2006. I’m very confident with the car and the whole Heart of Racing Team which I love to be with. We all started training hard to be ready for it.” 

Fortunately, neither driver are this year tied into the demands of the WEC as team owner Hoshino has taken something of a racing back step whilst Fujii has returned to the team manager role on the pit wall alongside his Super GT and GTWC Asia racing commitments.

Then, looking at the EBM entry, we were hoping for the return of the FHK Racing team who contested the Sepang 12hr with the EBM prepared Vantage GT3, but later news has confirmed that it is one of their own former Porsche clients who now takes up the AMR mantel within the series as Indonesian driver Setiawan Santosa takes the reigns of the #8 car within the Am class.

No idea yet if there is any co-driver within the #8 EBM but looking at last year’s results, he did appear to chop and change between drivers as the series progressed – so it’s a wait and see.

Track action begins Thursday with the first of two private testing sessions before track activity becomes a little more formal on Friday with Official Practice before Qualifying sessions 1 and 2 on Saturday morning ahead of the opening one-hour race before rounding off the season opening weekend with race 2 on Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / Series 

Whilst this is all obviously great news, there now lies one simple question regarding the involvement of the first driver the team named for their 2024 commitments – where is Jorge Lorenzo in all of this??

That aside, Misano will welcome the first round of the Italian GT Series in early May whilst Di Giusto gets his first taste of his new race car at that circuit next week.

Photo credits - Team

As with any opening round, there is always a whole load of ‘new’ for any group to contend with and we had already heard of just some of the issues that both the #59 Racing Spirit of Leman crew as well as the #97 Grid Motorsport with TF going crew of Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Jonny Adam had had to deal with going into this opening race around the Circuit de Catalunya, so this morning was all about building upon what they had and to see what comes up during the opening four hours of the season.

Above all else, there was fortunately no repeat of the devastating opening lap for any of the forty-three runners as was witnessed last season when two of the three AMR runners were taken out within the first few corners. Instead, both crews were able to establish their own race pattern under the clear and warm skies of Spain.

Having started ahead of the #59 car, the borrowed #97 car of Berry was able to consolidate their class position as DeBoer gave chase before the race entered the first of many cautions which this year came in the form of not just Full Course yellows and Safety Cars but also Virtual Safety Car periods for the first time this year.

Running similar opening stints to one another, both AMR teams ran their bronze driver for their minimum driver time apiece before going it alone as the #59 then changed to their silver driver of Stevenson whilst the #97 changed to Adam for their middle order.

With just a little hip action between the cars as Stevenson took track position off the #97 of Hanafin to speak of, both Aston Martins were otherwise able to run clean races as this time, others struggled with liability and squabbles with other track users.

Just before the then class leading Porsche suffered from their own technical issues to retire from the race, the #59 AMR was just ahead of the #97 AMR in P8 and P9 respectively as Hasse-Clot was up against Hanafin to the end.

Eventually finishing P6 and P7 (respectively), at least both cars opened their 2024 ELMS account with what could be vital championship points as the Series now looks ahead to its second round from Paul Ricard in just three weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

Early running in Free Practice saw the crew clock in a best lap time worthy of thirteenth within their class (just 1.1 seconds off the ultimate pace at that stage) but engine issues forced the team to change the engine – missing the later Qualifying session later in the day.

Starting from last on the grid, the #777 did manage to elevate themselves up to P16 by the time that Fujii had completed his opening stint but a tyre issue for the Danish AMR factory driver dropped them back down to nineteenth by the end of the seventy-seven-lap race.

Next race will be at the teams home circuit of Fuji Speedway in early May.

Photo credits - Team

Over the last two season’s in the TSS Series, we have had the Viper Niza team represent the brand with their 16A version of the Vantage GT3 but they have competed their last two series events within either the LMP3 car or most recently within a Mercedes AMG GT3 at the Sepang 12Hr.

Team NZ announces its programme for TSS 2024 just as the series expands its calendar from four to five rounds (and ten races) for 2024, thanks to the addition of an extra round at Sepang Circuit. The Malaysian F1 circuit has been a happy hunting round for Team NZ over the years and it has enjoyed much winning success there.

TSS 2024 will kick off next month at Buriram’s FIA Grade 1 Chang International Circuit before taking in the iconic Bangsaen Grand Prix street race. That’s followed by back-to-back trips to Sepang International Circuit before the year closes with a return trip to Buriram in December.

With the help of Aston Martin Racing Asia and Earl Bamber Motorsport, Team NZ has just wrapped up a pre-season and acclimatisation programme at Sepang Circuit as it gets up to speed with the Vantage GT4 and beds in Tangniannatchai.

Source material - Team

Of course, things didn’t exactly start too smoothly as first the Racing Spirit of Leman team had to wait for the Comtoyou Racing team to hand their car back to them after the Belgium team had used that car at the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe Series at Paul Ricard, and then the Grid Motorsport by TF was reliant upon the Comtoyou Racing team for a spare chassis after their #97 car was damaged on the opening day of the preceding Prologue Test.

Competing within a new for 2024 LMGT3 class of eleven cars within a combined LMP2, LMP3 and GT3 grid of forty-three cars, both #59 Racing Spirit of Leman car of Derek DeBoer, Casper Stevenson and Valentin Hasse-Clot alongside the #97 Grid Motorsport by TF AMR of Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Jonny Adam ended the first Free Practice session down in P9 and P10 before ending that Free Practice process in P4 for the #59 car and P9 for the #97.

Next was the Qualifying session for which the #59 RSoL car of DeBoer had to sit and wait a minute with a one-minute stop and hold at the beginning of that session having been found guilty of crossing the pit entry white line during the earlier session.

One top of that, the American would have it last flying lap deleted for track limits, eventually finishing P9 in class for tomorrow’s four-hour opener. The #97 car of Berry would, however, would fair slightly better – even with a lap of his own being deleted with a P6 start on the grid tomorrow morning.

And …….. the cars look brilliant even if one isn’t the one that TF Sport quite had in mind!!

Photo credits – Teams / social media

So quickly after the opening double header rounds of the feeding NLS Series last weekend, the entry list details another one hundred and forty plus crews lining up for this weekend’s events with the Aston Martin Racing powered crews confirmed as:-

#17 Pro Prosport Racing SP9 Pro – Nico Bastian/Marek Bockmann/Yelmer Buurmann

#34 Walkenhorst Motorsport SP9 Pro – Christian Krognes/Jakub Giermaziak/David Pittard/Nicki Thiim

#35 Walkenhorst Motorsport SP9 Pro-Am – Chandler Hull/Benjamin Mazatis/Patrick Assenheimer

#36 Walkenhorst Motorsport SP9 Pro-Am – Henry Walkenhorst/Stefan Aust/Christian Bollrath

#69 Dorr Motorsport SP9 Pro-Am – Phil Dorr/Ben Dorr

#169 Dorr Motorsport SP8T – Frank Weishar/Sven Schadler

#175 Prosport Racing SP10 – Jasmin Preisig/Joerg Viebahn

#176 Prosport Racing SP10 – Harry Rice/Pengcheng Ye

#176 Prosport Racing SP10 – Gustav Bard/Partick Skoog/Lorenzo Rocco

#269 Dorr Motorsport SP8T – Phillipe Charlaix/Aaron Wenisch

Saturday will feature Qualifying for their first four-hour race before likewise on Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / social media