Just a week after concluding their first racing duties of the year at the final double header round of the Asian Le Mans Series at Yas Marina last weekend, it will be back to business for many of the returning contingent of the Japanese based D’Station Racing this weekend as they attend the first official test weekend for their domestic Super Taikyu Series.

With the final round of last years delayed 2020 season being cancelled due to the escalation of their national COVID-19 situation and honours being awarded to the class leading cars by the end of the penultimate round, the sole Japanese team again return with both an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 and GT4 with an unchanged driver line up in either car.

Team boss Satoshi Hoshino again pairs up with Tomonobu Fujii and Tsubasa Kondo in the #777 ST-X Class GT3 whilst Tatsuya Hoshino, Max Orido, Takuro Shinohara and Kenji Hama all return in the team’s #47 ST-Z classed AMR GT4 having potentially missed out on a championship winning finale with the cancellation of last season’s finale.

Tomorrow’s test will see four sessions running between 10:00hrs and 20:00hrs local at the Fuji International Speedway circuit and will be critical for all teams as this year has seen the Series swap to the Hankook tyre.

In what will be a very busy year for the team having stepped up to a full season in an AMR Vantage GTE in the World Endurance Championship, it appears that the team may have had to sacrifice their continued participation within the Super GT Series as a price worth paying for the national and world racing programme.

The Super Taikyu Series is due to start at the end of March at Motegi and will cover five more rounds (interrupted by a further Series test at Fuji in April) before concluding at Okayama in November.

Update - Appears that the team elected not to run the Vantage GT3 at this non-mandatory test after members of team who recently returned from Abu Dhabi were still serving a voluntary period of self isolation

Photo credits – D’Station Racing

 

Another strong entry list has today been confirmed by the SRO GT4 America Series today ahead of their opening round of the season at Sonoma next weekend.

Many of the thirty-two GT4 cars from eight manufacturers have already been testing at the circuit over the last few days ahead of a slightly different look to the 2021 season where just the Am Class drivers will race in a pure GT4 event whilst the Pro-Am Sprint X crews will now compete alongside GT3 machinery in the GT World Challenge America Sprint races.

Aston Martin has selected Motorsports Services AMR Asia Limited (MSAA) to become its exclusive distributor of all variants of Vantage GT race cars, parts and technical support for China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the south-east Asian region.

Combining the vast experience of three key partners, including racing driver Weiron Tan and former race team manager Ron Reichert, the newly-formed organisation is tasked with expanding the British luxury sportscar brand’s motorsport footprint in the region. The primary targets for this expansion will be the 2022 Asian Le Mans Series, the GTWC Asia and the burgeoning China GT Championship.

 

Darren Turner will return to his roots and race on some of the UK’s greatest racing circuits in 2021, when he makes his series debut in the GT Cup racing for Feathers Motor Sport (FMS) at Donington Park in April.

The works Aston Martin Racing driver joins his Base Performance Simulators business partner James Guess – the team’s regular driver – as the duo take the reins of the team’s new Aston Martin Vantage GT4.

It will mark the first time Turner has raced the British sportscar brand’s customer-focussed entry GT race car anywhere other than the Nürburgring Nordschleife – where he gave it a debut double podium at the German venue in 2019.


“It’s the first time I will have raced a GT4 in a championship, or even in the UK for that matter,” said Turner. “It’s good to be racing back on some of the old favourites, and nice to be in the UK. Let’s see what we can do as a pairing, try and keep out of trouble, get some points and get James into the championship hunt as the year goes on.”

FMS enjoyed a successful first full season in the GT Cup’s GTH class, with Guess taking four class wins and a further nine podiums en route to runner-up in the championship.

The team has acquired the Vantage to go for a full tilt at the title, and as such it made sense to call on Turner to help them get up to speed with the car quickly.

After last week’s news of the Dorr Motorsport team with family drivers swapping over to the Aston Martin Racing brand in the ADAC GT4 Germany Series for this season, today has seen further good news for the brand as Gentleman racer David Holloway confirms his return to the UK GT Cup Championship, this time a brand-new AMR Vantage GT4 and now with a former GT Cup Champion alongside.

Never a stranger to that national Championship having raced in it many times before with co-driver Piers Johnson in their Century Motorsport prepared Ginetta G55 GT4, the Aston Martin Lagonda connoisseur of its road cars first came our attention in early 2019 when the pair first declared an entry into that year's Championship from the Autosport Show with one of AMR's latest GT4 creations.

For one reason or another and despites its original mid-season delivery date for the car, that intention sadly never materialised but the duo did see out the 2019 GT Cup season aboard one of Optimum Motorsport’s AMR Vantage GT4’s under the watchful eye of Ross Gunn as a practice for their bigger event that was to follow for him at the end of the year.

Venturing over to the Gulf 12hr for what is his biggest racing event so far, Holloway joined up with (now) British GT racer David Whitmore and Michael Dinan (2020 GT4 America Champion) as the trio raced a GT4 in an elongated race for the first time.

Holloways 2020 campaign was just another of many that were affected by the COVID-19 situation worldwide as the businessman took the time out on his racing to concentrate on his business matters.

Today, he confirms his return to the AMR brand, this time for a full season entry into the GT Cup Championship alongside co-driver and 2018 GTH Class Champion Adam Hatfield in a car that will again prepared by those he knows best at Century Motorsport.

Hatfield spent the best part of two seasons with Chris Murphy and his Whitebridge Motorsport team and their normally aspirated Vantage GT4's before switching to a BMW M3 GT4 most recently in the British GT Championship with Century Motorsport

The multi-race format, seven round GT Cup calendar starts at Donington Park in mid April and includes a supporting role at the GT World Challenge Europe event at Brands Hatch later in May.

This team will join the Feathers Motorsport team who have already declared a new AMR Vantage GT4 entry into the GT Cup Championship with drivers James Guess and Darren Turner.

Photo credits - Gulf 12hr / A Hatfield / Century Motorsport

 

If you’re interested in getting a deal as you want to go racing (or just have some fun at a track) then look no further than David Appleby Engineering’s offer of two 2019 specification Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4’s for just £300k + vat for the pair!

Previously used by the team in several European series as well bespoke events such as the  Dubai 24 and the Gulf 12Hr, these two cars unfortunately saw little race mileage last year but have been maintained regardless of cost by the owner and are now being offered to interested parties as a pair together with an additional spares and equipment package (with an extra charge) if required at a substantial saving to cost price.

With the global GT market getting more ‘switched on’ to the cost benefits in racing GT4 cars as opposed to higher classes of race car, these two cars would be immediately on the pace in any series around the world and is already a proven Championship winner.

Further details are available via https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/Details/117183/2-x-aston-martin-vantage-gt4-2020-specificati

Photo credits – Racecar Direct / Gulf 12Hr

 

Today’s fourth and final round of the Asian Le Mans Series was something of a crucial affair for certainly two Aston Martin Racing teams as they would be the only ones from the original five who were still in position to at least challenge for the last two Le Mans automatic invitation places in the GT Class.

With the top two slots already taken by the Herberth and GPX Porsche teams after two dominating rounds last weekend at the Dubai Autodrome, a podium finish was a must for the #97 Oman with TF Sport AMR Vantage of Ahmad Al Harthy, Jonny Adam and Tom Canning after their unfortunate DNF in yesterday’s third race whilst the #88 Garage 59 crew of Alex West, Maxime Martin and Valentin Hasse-Clot needed to emulate their performance and indeed luck from the second race from Dubai to have any chance themselves.

 

Taking with them their robust performances in their last race at Dubai Autodrome on Sunday, the five Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 car entries from Garage 59, TF Sport and D’Station Racing were all hopeful of something similar in today’s penultimate round of the Asian Le Mans Series from Yas Marina – but most would be left somewhat disappointed.

Moving into the two final four-hour races at the Abu Dhabi circuit which would involve more night time running with their later race starts, today was to be a busy day for the thirty five runners after already having run two Qualifying Sessions this morning for each of todays and Saturday’s races.

There had also been more beneficial news for them in the form of an additional 15kg of ballast being added to the three Porsche 911 GT3 cars after two dominating performances by them in Dubai that left the GPX and Herberth Porsche teams at the top of the leader board going to Yas Marina.

The global Aston Martin Racing family became another one stronger today after the Dorr Motorsport team from Germany confirmed a new AMR Vantage GT4 for drivers Phil Dorr and Andreas Wirth in this season’s ADAC GT4 Germany Series.

Filling the void in the German national GT4 series previously held by the PROsport Performance team when they ran two brand new turbo charged AMR GT4’s in their debut year, this family backed team will support both an AMR car for one son and a new McLaren 570s for another.

Twenty-year-old Phil Dorr is another young driver who has progressed through the racing ranks and this year comes with two previous years’ worth of GT4 racing experience in both the ADAC GT4 series and the GT4 European Series including a race win and two pole positions in his then 570s entry.

Dorr is another big family chain of road car franchise’s in Germany that includes luxury marques like Aston Martin Berlin and three McLaren outlets.

Dorr is joined by thirty-six-year-old countryman Andreas Wirth who comes with extensive race experience most recently from the European Le Mans Series and many years in ADAC GT Masters.

The team expect delivery of their new race cars in the coming days before they start their season preparations ahead of six double header weekends that start at Oschersleben in mid-May.

We patiently wait for any further news of this apparent AMR Vantage GT3 entry into the headlining ADAC GT Masters Series as previously intimated by the series late last year!

Photo credits – Dorr Motorsport

 

A mere 65 miles between circuits and three days later, the Asian Le Mans Series and its thirty six car entry has already set up and had its first test sessions at the Yas Marina Circuit today as the series and crew look forward to the final two back to back rounds of the 2021 season there in Abu Dhabi.

Having only started last weekend at the Dubai Autodrome for the first two rounds of the shortened series, five Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3’s were of course included within that grid number as teams like Garage 59, TF Sport, Oman Racing and D’Station Racing also saw the benefits of shipping out to the Middle East for this series in the quest of early competitive seat time as well as that illusive automatic invitation that goes with winning in the GT class.

Some drivers listed aboard these AMR’s were running in the GT3 for the very first time whilst others had been forced (by circumstance) to sit out most of their 2020 season so these races were the first for them too in a while.