Round 4 of the 2014 GT World Series, the 12 Hours of Aston Grand Touring.
After a rather clean race last round at South City, ending with a chaotic GT2 finish set up by a late-race Safety Car, the GT World Series heads to the longest track on its calendar, the 8.002 kilometer log Aston Grand Touring circuit. Conquest Racing took the win in GT1 last time out after vortex.eu was penalized due to a technical infringement, and Iron Club took the win by less than a car length after the dominant Team Vires car rolled with 4 minutes remaining in the race after an attempt to overtake a slower GT1 car failed.
Unlike the previous two rounds, Aston is all about speed on its long, wide straights, but also a compromise in setup for the fast, sweeping corners in the north section of the circuit. Teams will generally run a mid- to low-downforce setup for speed on the long straights that dominate this circuit. The first sector has three slow-speed corners which bring mechanical grip into play, but almost all of the other corners are aero-dependant.
Defending GT1 champions ineX Racing make a return, and take pole doing so. Nitor Velox start alongside, and championship contenders Genuine Racing and Conquest Racing make up the second Row. New team Rest of the World take pole in GT2, and the GT2 championship contenders start in the top half of the 19-car GT2 field.
Inter-Class lapping should be fairly easy, with the GT1 cars able to use their speed advantage on the long straights to easily overtake the slower GT2 class, but care will still be needed in the slower corners where the cars are equally matched.
The 12 Hours of Aston will see half-points awarded to the running order after 6 hours elapse, then again as normal, full points at race finish, effectively making this a 1.5x points round. The method of awarding the points will encourage consistent running, and favor those who run up top all race.
ineX Racing Manager Isaac Price says, "Looking forward to the race, happy to be on pole after a fairly long absence from endurance racing. Hoping to be able to have a good race and fight for the win in GT1 against the best drivers in LFS despite the long absence from driving LFS for Mathias Wentjärvi and Simon Cattell and to generally just see how we compare to the best LFS has to offer and savour the return to multiclass endurance racing."
Rewatch all the action on NDR's YouTube Channel! Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
12 Hours of Aston Spotter's Guide by Bean0
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