In the weekend of 21 September Team Virage took off to Barcelona for the sixth round of the GT Open Cup. The Aston Martin Vantage got to get in action on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Spanish GT and Touring Cars stars Fernando Navarette and Alvaro Lobera joined the team for this round.
On the Saturday the weather had reached an all-time low with rain pouring down, causing the qualifying session to be cancelled. This meant that the Aston Martin had to start from the 13th position, 6th in Pro-Am. As all cars started in slick tyres, the first lap of the race saw a proper rush for wet tyres. A great job by our mechanic saw the car exiting the pits in 8th place. With the race under Safety-Car conditions, Lobera, who had taken the start, tried his best to put his tyres in temperature. At the restart, the Spaniard did a fantastic job placing the car as high as 5th before swapping to Fernando Navarrete. Unfortunately, some electrical issues caused misfire, forcing our Pro driver to drop to 9th place overall, and 4th best Pro-Am.
While the team worked tirelessly on Saturday night to fix the issue, it unfortunately wasn’t completely solved for the race. As problems kept on appearing in Race 2, Navarrete and the team decided to retire the car.
It was a bittersweet week-end overall as both drivers and the team proved their competitiveness, which unfortunately didn’t transform into a proper result in Barcelona.
