Their breathtaking victory was the first for the trio since their famous CrowdStrike Spa 24 Hours win in 2024 and marked the first ‘regular season’ Endurance Cup overall win for any Vantage since R Motorsport’s victory at Silverstone in 2018.
“That was awesome,” said Thiim, “what an amazing weekend. To be honest, we really brainstormed and tried something new with the Vantage GT3 this week. I had some mixed feelings when we tried it in the Prologue, but we stuck with it and it worked well. In the cold conditions the car was just a dream to drive. I really had a lot of fun.”
Victory in the series’ traditional 6-Hour opener on France’s Côte D’Azur came in dramatic circumstances, after the winning #007 Vantage GT3 staged a fightback from a left rear puncture in the first hour of the race. Having started third on the grid, Sørensen stayed in the leading pack for the first 50 minutes before the issue occurred in the final sector of the lap. This was fortuitous as the slow crawl back to the pits to change tyres was short, keeping the car within its strategic pitstop window and still in the top 15 when it emerged from its service.
Sørensen put on a charge, climbing back to sixth before handing over to Thiim, who forged forward into the podium positions. From that point on, Thiim and Drudi alternated stints and put consistent pressure on the leader. A Full Course Yellow neutralised the race with 30 minutes to go, and when it went green again, Thiim closed in and made a concerted bid for the lead in the final stages. Setting a sequence of flying laps, one of which was the fastest of the race, Thiim pressured the leader into a mistake on the back straight and moved to the front with five laps to go.
“Nicki did an amazing job at the end, and the entire team was fantastic from the Prologue onwards,” said Drudi. “We tried some different things on the set-up and it paid off because we were competitive in both qualifying and the race. We were lucky that Marco’s puncture was in the last sector of the lap, so we were able to pit without losing too much time and we fought back. At the end Nicki’s pace was super quick. This is the best way to start the season, and we can try to fight for the championship now.”
Sørensen added: “Since 2024 when we won Spa, we haven’t had a race win in this championship, but we’ve been on the podium a couple of times. It’s nice to take an actual win and be up there and fighting where we deserve to be.”
The sister #21 Comtoyou Racing AMR was also on the podium in the Silver Cup Class being the next Aston Martin home from the 58-car field after AMR Driver Academy winner Kobe Pauwels and current candidates Sébastien Baud and Oliver Söderström finishing third in class/P20 overall, having started from the class pole.
The solo running #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport AMR of Mateo Vilagomez, Ethan Ischer and Gaspard Simon was next AMR home, P34 overall and P10 in their silver class with the Bronze classed #56 Ecurie Ecosse by Blackthorn AMR finishing P41 overall/P10 in that class with the final full season entry of the #11 Comtoyou Racing bronze class entry of Kyle Marcelli, AJ Muss and Marcelo Tomasoni finishing their debut race together three cars further back overall/P12 in class.
The guesting #18 Comtoyou Racing Pro class effort of Lance Stroll, Roberto Merhi and Mari Boya would eventually finish P48 overall and thirteen laps down to the winning sister car having been penalised severely for repeated blue flag irregularities.
The series now heads to Monza in Italy next at the end of May
Source material – AMR
Photo credits – Teams / Series / AMR / Social media