ASTON ENDS BLANC PAIN WIN DROUGHT
Aston Martin claimed a first win in the Blancpain GT Series for five years at Silverstone as Matthieu Vaxiviere, Jake Dennis and Nicki Thiim won from pole for R-motorsport.
It was the first outright victory for the Vantage GT3 since Darren Turner, Stefan Mucke and Fred Makowiecki with the works team at Silverstone in 2013, and came in only the second race for the new team run by crack LMP2 outfit Jota Sport.
After Vaxiviere held top spot at the start, Dennis briefly lost the lead to the #88 ASP Mercedes of Tristan Vautier after the first pitstops. But the Briton wasn’t to be denied and retook the lead with a classic switchback manoeuvre on the exit of Luffield, before handing over to Thiim to bring the car to the finish, 11 seconds ahead of Vautier, Adam Christodoulou and Raffaele Marciello.
The result remained provisional when MN went to press however, as the #76 Aston was racing under appeal after being excluded from qualifying when its data-logger was found to contain no data.
Behind them, Emil Frey Racing took a first podium with the Lexus RCF GT3, as Stephane Ortelli, Markus Palttala and Norbert Siedler narrowly fended off Monza winner Dries Vanthoor, Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas in the #1 WRT Audi.
Fourth place was still enough for the trio to extend their championship lead, however.
The Audi had run sixth prior to the final pitstops, but a poor stop for the second R-motorsport Aston Martin – which had been running third until a mistake from Alex Brundle at Becketts dropped him to fifth – and contact with a lapped Bentley that delayed Yelmer Buurman’s #4 Black Falcon Mercedes opened the door for Vanthoor to attack.
Brundle’s team-mate Maxime Martin also passed Buurman in the final stint to take fifth, completing a memorable day for Aston Martin.
Silverstone local RAM Racing took Pro-am honours after a tussle with fellow Mercedes squad Strakka Racing. Euan Hankey, Salih Yoluc and Darren Burke finished 20th overall, ahead of Lewis Williamson, Nick Leventis and Chris Buncombe, while Top Gear presenter Chris Harris joined Chris Goodwin and Alex West to win the Am class in a Garage 59 Mclaren 650S.
Renault junior Max Fewtrell made up for a nightmare outing at Monza with victory in the opening Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup race, only to non-score in the second, won by Charles Milesi. Having scored only one point in Italy and lost the championship lead to fellow Renault junior Christian Lundgaard, Fewtrell converted pole position into a comfortable victory ahead of R-ace GP team-mate Logan Sargeant, while Lundgaard qualified only 16th and retired after contact with Raul Guzman.
To make matters worse, the Dane earned a three-place grid penalty which dropped him to fourth on the grid for race two. However, Fewtrell was unable to capitalise due to gearbox issues in qualifying that left him mired in the midpack. Contact on lap one between Frank Bird and Artur Rougier at Club forced Fewtrell to take evasive action and fall to the back of the field, before retiring towards the end of the race.
After finishing seventh in race one, Frenchman Milesi inherited pole and headed off the challenge of Sargeant to claim his first win for R-ace GP, while Josef Kaufmann’s Yifei Ye claimed podiums in both races to take the championship lead from Lundgaard, who finished fifth.