Today saw the first track action of a two-day Prologue Test at the Spa Francorchamps circuit ahead of next months 78thCrowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa with fifty-nine of the expected seventy car entry taking part within today’s opening two sessions.
Whilst we thought that the seven Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered entries and crews were fairly locked in before now, there have been a few more changes within a couple of these cars with six of the seven in attendance today.
For the German based Walkenhorst Motorsport team, it’s a busy week for them having just cleared up from their podium winning achievements at last weekend’s ADAC Ravenol N24 from the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
The #35 silver classed Vantage GT3 of Mateo Vilagomez, Ethan Ischer, Gaspard Simon and Maxime Robin was in attendance today at Spa but their #34 Pro class entry of Henrique Chaves, Christian Krognes and Jamie Day was not – or at least did not get any measurable laps in.
The Ecurie Ecosse by Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 crew was in attendance but their driver line up within their #56 car for both the Prologue and the Spa 24 has changed again slightly as Tom Wood loses his seat to Romain Leroux for both events alongside Jonny Adam, Giacomo Petrobelli and Lorcan Hanafin.
The remaining Aston Martins in attendance were from the locally based Comtoyou Racing team as they fielded the other four cars across the Pro, Silver and Bronze classes.
Podium winners at Nordschleife Nicki Thiim and Mattia Drudi (then in a Walkenhorst prepared AMR of course) swap over to the Comtoyou prepared #7 Pro entry alongside that of Marco Sorenson. The #11 bronze entry of Marcelo Tomasoni, AJ Muss and Kyle Marcelli has been boosted with fourth man Felice Jelmini whilst their #21 silver entry of Oliver Soderstrom, Kobe Pauwels and Sebastian Baud also has fourth man Arthur Dorison confirmed.
That leaves the all-Belgian car and crew of Nicolas Baert, Xavier Knauf, Sarah Bovey and Gergory Servais within the recently announced #700 Pro-Am Cup entry.
Photo credits – Series