Bamber handed penalty for Spa crash, DXDT score first Z06 win, and the Valkyrie LMH makes progress
A privateer win, a first for GM's newest GT model, and the British LMH continues to develop – OE Founder Tim Fullbrook summarises the news of the week,
Missed the big stories from the last week? Here’s everything you need to know…
Bamber handed grid penalty for Spa shunt
Earl Bamber has been handed a 5-place grid penalty for his next WEC start as Stewards deemed him responsible for causing the major shunt on the Kemmel Straight which lead to the 6H Spa being red-flagged.
The New Zealander was attempting to pass Neel Jani’s #99 Proton Competition Porsche when he made side-on contact with Sean Gelael in the #31 Team WRT BMW LMGT3, an incident of which only Jani made it out with minor damage.
Bamber will take a 5-place grid penalty at his next WEC appearance, which is likely to be the 24H Le Mans in less than a month’s time.
A massive 130 cars set for Nürburgring 24 Hours
The Nürburgring 24 Hours has released its provisional entry list for the 2024 edition, which sees a total of 130 cars registered for the Eifel endurance classic which is run as part of SRO’s Intercontinental GT Challenge for the first time.
The entry list is headlined by 25 GT3 cars, which will make up the SP9 class vying for overall honours. Frikadelli Racing, overall winners in 2023, return with the #1 Ferrari 296 GT3 as they attempt to defend their crown as the only Ferrari in the field.
Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Lamborghini, Mercedes and Porsche all bring multiple cars to the field with the latter two deploying no less than six cars to the German event.
Glickenhaus will also make their return to the N24 after their one year hiatus, racing a sole SCG 004C in the SP-X class. Whilst the car is built to GT3 specifications, it’s not yet received FIA homologation and so races in a separate category.
Finally the fan-favourite Dacia Logan from Ollis Garage Racing will return to the grid after an off-season rebuild.
Corvette Z06 GT3.R wins first race globally with DXDT Racing
DXDT Racing scored the first win internationally for the Corvette Z06 GT3.R when they won Race 1 of GTWC America’s visit to COTA.
The North Carolina team only took delivery of their first of two Z06 GT3.R chassis in late April, racing the #08 car at Sebring two weeks ago.
This weekend the team welcomed the #63 car as new driver pairing Tommy Milner and Alec Udell wasted no time in getting up to speed, winning from pole in the Saturday race.
In WEC the newest GT offering from Corvette has achieved a best finish of 7th in LMGT3 with TF Sport, and scored its first podium in the hands of GTD PRO team Pratt Miller at Laguna Seca.
Rossi and Martin win at Misano as WRT sweep weekend
Valentino Rossi and Maxime Martin triumphed in Race 1 of GTWC Europe Sprint Cup’s visit to Misano, repeating their success at the Italian venue a year ago.
The #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 won the race from pole, but it was not without significant competition for Rossi in the final stint as teammate Charles Weerts in the #32 sister car chased on.
Rossi would cross the line only 0.275s ahead, to score his third career win in GT competition.
Weerts and Dries Vanthoor would round out the race day by winning Race 2, which took place at night; taking victory from pole to become the first repeat winners of the 2024 season.
Valkyrie LMH makes progress as testing approaches
Aston Martin and Heart of Racing have confirmed to reporters that the Valkyrie LMh programme is continuing as planned, as the new project targets track testing early in the second half of the year.
Adam Carter, head of Endurance Motorsport at Aston Martin, explained that the British marque is “on target,” outlining that extensive testing has been undertaken with the existing AMR PRO car acting as a test mule.
Carter explained that the combined effort would focus on a single car in the early stages of testing before splitting into European and American based programmes.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie is slated to race in both the WEC Hypercar class and IMSA’s GTP category, operated by championship-winning partner team Heart of Racing.
Ford and Multimatic find breaking boot fix for Mustang GT3
Ford Performance have been given the green light to make alterations to the new Mustang GT3 within the homologation to mitigate against the rear bodywork malfunctions that have plagued the first races with the new car.
Starting at Daytona where the both factory and customer cars suffered unexplained ‘boot lid’ damage early in the race, the issue has occurred at a number of events since, including in WEC and GTWC Europe.
Changes were made ahead of the WEC’s 6H Spa, and IMSA’s visit to Laguna Seca.
Ford believe that aerodynamic changes caused by running in traffic lead to the repeated failure of bonds on rear strengthening elements, and admitted to only having suffered the fault once in testing.
Ferrari’s protest of 6H Spa restart is rejected
Ferrari AF Corse attempted to protest the Stewards’ decision to restart the WEC’s 6H Spa after nearly two hours under red flag.
The Italian team submitted a protest in the hours following the delayed finish, but subsequently had their appeal rejected.
The two factory 499Ps were running 1-2 at the time of the red flag intervention, recovering to third and fourth for the #50 and #51 cars respectively after having to take emergency service behind the safety car.
The appeal was rejected as, according to the decision report, “A Stewards' decision can not be the subject of a protest under article 13.2.1 of FIA International Sporting Code.”
I'm ok with the decision of restarting the 6h SPA, but what is the point of having an article that says "A Stewards' decision can not be the subject of a protest"? That looks non-sense to me, what's the point of protesting in the first place then