In the blink of an eye the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup is almost over for 2019. The final race of the season takes place this weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and the stakes are high as every team wants to finish the season with a strong result, not least Garage 59.
The Barcelona track is the home of the Spanish Grand Prix and a firm favourite for F1 winter testing due to its good mix of high and low speed turns. It is a popular circuit with drivers who enjoy the challenges of this technical track.
The drivers of the #59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 are due some luck after a difficult season. They started strong with a Top 10 finish at Monza but after a run of three DNFs, Jonny Adam, Côme Ledogar and Andrew Watson are hoping for a clear run in Barcelona.
“The focus for Barcelona is 100% a win,” said Watson. “We’re not in the hunt for the championship so we have nothing to lose. The team has worked so hard this year behind the scenes and it would be great to reward everyone with a trophy.
“It's Garage 59's first year running an Aston Martin so there was always going to be an element of learning and improvement throughout the year. The Vantage GT3 is a good car and we have a strong line-up so let’s finish the season on a high. We've fought at the front at times this year, in Monza and Paul Ricard, so we've shown we can do it. With only five races on the calendar, every weekend is so important so a good result at Barcelona would really change the story of our season. We've had two mechanical issues and one unavoidable contact so it's our job now to turn the tide!”
The #188 Aston Martin crew have had a more successful season, with victory at Paul Ricard and podium finishes at Monza and Silverstone. The last Blancpain endurance race was the Spa 24 Hours and Alexander West, Chris Goodwin and Chris Harris had to settle for ninth place in the AM class when Goodwin was pushed into the pit wall by another driver while running strongly in a podium position.
“Barcelona can’t come soon enough,” said Goodwin. “We’ve had a long break in the Blancpain season since Spa and we want a chance to convert our strengthened performance into a top race result. Alex and I, along with Côme, raced in the Suzuka 10 Hours last month and took a Pro-Am podium so we’re feeling strong and looking forward to Chris Harris joining us again to complete the all-Bronze line-up so we can finish this season on a high.
“I’m very happy with the performance of the Garage 59 team, the Aston Martin Vantage race car and the three Am drivers that make our race weekends usually competitive, massively enjoyable and often rewarding. One word of warning about Barcelona though: it is a tight circuit for such a large number of cars and avoiding incident will be the biggest challenge this weekend.”
A large field of 48 GT3 cars will race in the season finale at Barcelona, which gets underway on Sunday 29 February at 15:00 CET with all the action streamed LIVE via Blancpain-gt-series.com.