GTWC: Jessica Hawkins' team forced to withdraw from 3 Hours of Monza

Following a crash for one of her teammates in the sole free practice session, Jessica Hawkins will not be able to race in this weekend's 3 Hours of Monza, as the team was forced to withdraw the #270 Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Photo credits: JEP / SRO

Following a crash for one of her teammates in the sole free practice session, Jessica Hawkins will not be able to race in this weekend's 3 Hours of Monza.

Jessica Hawkins and the #270 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin entered the race with high hopes after a challenging round last time out at Paul Ricard.

The British racer, former W Series and British GT driver as well as current Aston Martin Driver Ambassador, made her GT World Challenge Europe debut at the season opener in Le Castellet, helping the Comtoyou Racing #270 crew climb 13 positions to ultimately finish P11 in the Bronze Cup.

The second round in Monza started with the 50th best time overall on the first testing session on Friday, which was good enough for 10th in the Bronze class. In the second test later that day, the team was 12th in class.

However, Hawkins and the Comtoyou Racing team weren't going to back down; with the Monza circuit notorious for its long straights and heavy reliance on slipstream, their lap times didn't tell the full story.

In the sole official free practice session, held on Saturday, things were looking on the up for Hawkins and the Comtoyou Racing team teammates. For most of the session, the #270 Aston Martin was within the top 20 overall, and was still 18th with less than one hour left in the session.

Belgian Antoine Potty, who had driven the car for most of the session and had set the fastest time, then suffered a scary shunt at the Ascari chicane, which brought out the red flag, bringing the session to a halt. Potty was luckily uninjured.

As the car was left severely damaged and couldn't be repaired on time, the trio of Hawkins/Leroy/Potty will not be able to take further part in this weekend's 3 Hours of Monza.

"A hard hit in this mornings practice for my team mate Antoine", Hawkins commented. "Despite every effort by the team, the damages sustained are too bad to repair in time for the rest of the weekend.

The main point is that Antoine is okay."

"Car 270 will be back at Spa in a few weeks", she concluded, with the team scheduled to compete in the 24 Hours of Spa.