Walkenhorst Motorsport experienced a challenging weekend at the second race weekend of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup in Zandvoort.
Walkenhorst Motorsport travelled full of anticipation from the prologue of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa to Zandvoort, where the second race weekend of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup took place. The team from Melle in Lower Saxony entered an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 driven by factory driver Henrique Chaves and up-and-coming young talent Mateo Villagomez.
‘After things went very well for us in the ADAC GT Masters at Zandvoort last year, we travelled to the North Sea with a good feeling. Unfortunately, we were unable to repeat last year’s good results,’ said team founder Henry Walkenhorst.
Chaves did not get a perfect lap in his qualifying session on Saturday, so he only had to start the race from 18th on the grid. However, the race was over for the Portuguese driver after just a few laps. After several collisions in a chaotic start phase, he had to park the Aston Martin in the pits with various damage to the front end.
After the mechanics repaired the Vantage GT3 for Sunday’s race, Villagomez experienced a difficult qualifying session and had to start the race from the back of the grid. In the race, the young driver showed some good overtaking manoeuvres and was able to collect important race kilometres. After one hour of racing, Henrique Chaves ultimately finished the race in 27th place.
‘This was generally a disappointing race weekend for us, we had hoped for more, especially as things went very well for us here last year. We will now analyse the entire weekend in detail and draw our conclusions from it. Anyone who knows us knows that situations like this in the past have only made us stronger and that we never give up! Many thanks also to our mechanics, who repaired the car quickly and professionally after the damage on Saturday,’ said Jörg Breuer, Managing Director Walkenhorst Motorsport.
The next race for Walkenhorst Motorsport will take place next weekend when the ADAC 24h Qualifiers are held at the Nürburgring. The GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS continues on the last weekend in May, when the second Endurance Cup weekend takes place in Monza.