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