A tale of two halves for both Aston Martins at the ALMS opening weekend in Sepang

Both Astons would be fielding a crew mainly familiar with the rule set of the ACO rules series although both would be running with a ‘novice’ driver to both the circuit and ruleset although certainly not to GT3 racing in general. The #56 car would follow the usual trait of a bronze, silver and gold or platinum grade driver within their crew, but the #89 crew would feature just a bronze and two silver grade drivers to add something a little difference to the mix.

Giacomo Petrobelli would go onto claim top qualifying honours within the two AMR’s as he posted the sixth quickest time for Saturday’s race opener (as opposed to Martin Berry’s time worthy of P9) and would do so again with his second fastest lap also to pip their stablemate as they would qualifying P7 and P8 respectively for Sunday’s race.

The usual issues with multi-class racing come to fruition again on only the opening lap as spinning LMP3 cars collided with one another just in front of the GT3 leaders to bring out a very early Safety Car intervention to cool things back down again. Getting back to racing, the #56 would consolidate its then P4 running position although the #89 EBM car had dropped down to the back of the pack for unknown reasons.

As the first hour was coming to an end, the rain that had hampered earlier Free Practice and Qualifying had returned with something of a vengeance and that caught out a number of cars out, some going off bring out the Virtual Safety Car as well. That at least allowed the EBM car to climb back up the order again as the rain passed over and the race approached the halfway stage.

Another Race Control intervention for a beached LMP3 car just outside the final hour brought the GT3 field back togther again but contact between two such cars on the restart simply extended the caution to well within the final hour where the #89 EBM car was shown running 3rd and the #56 13th at the time. That would however soon change as the final pitstops panned out for both of these crews.

Although the top two finishing GT3 cars would later get reversed in order that’s to a time penalty being applied to the ‘winner’ for contact, the #56 Ecurie Ecosse AMR would take a close P3 finish (just half a second behind) whilst the #89 would eventually finish P7 in class for some valuable championship points each.

Sunday’s race start was a much cleaner affair as both Astons hung it out within the top ten in class before the inevitable rains returned to the circuit at the half hour mark and with multiple cars off at one corner alone, the VSC rule was hastily required.

Soon the skies were cleared and the track again dry as the remaining cars upped their speed accordingly again as the race topped only its first hour but with Matisse Lismont being the best placed of the two Aston’s in P10 just as the rain started falling again around just parts of the circuit as the Safety Car was this time called upon.

Still raining throughout the third hour of the race had seen the two Aston Martins again switch positions on track but both were still in close enough proximity to the peers ahead to seek out a similar result to that of yesterday although grip and visibility was still something of an issue on track but with thirty minutes remaining, the Safety Car was again called out for an LMP3 in the gravel.

With the rain again falling heavily all around the circuit and the race cars still behind the Safety Car, the race was eventually ‘called’ with fifteen minutes of the race clock still remaining. That left the #56 Ecurie Ecosse AMR running at the time in P13 and the #89 EBM car in P14 for a disappointing finish but no championship points to add to their name as the series heads to Dubai in February.

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