Dipping their racing toe in the water for the second time in what is a Creventic 24H Series event this at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas proved very fruitful for the Swiss R-Motorsport team by securing overall pole position for tomorrows race.

Having gone through something of a baptism at their first 24H Series quest in Barcelona a couple of months ago, the additional tyre data and series experience was enough for the racing quartet of team bosses Florian Kamelger andAndreas Baenziger along with Peter Leemhuis and Marvin Kirchhofer to secure the overall accolade by over half a second from the more experience Black Falcon team and their Mercedes AMG GT3's.


The first half of the CoTA 24Hr race begins at 10:30Am local before continuing on the Sunday. The R-Motosport car is now the sole AMR entry in the event despite early promises.


Meanwhile and a few thousand miles further east in Shanghai, China saw the Qualifying session for the World Endurance Championship's 6Hrs of Shanghai where there was further success for another AMR customer team with the #98 Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda crew securing their first pole position of the season in the GTE Am class.

“I’m feeling proud and relieved,” said Dalla Lana, reflecting on the lap Lamy delivered late-on to clinch the team’s first pole position of the season. “Pedro really deserves the kudos, because he made the difference, but this is also the first pole for our car since this time last year. This track has always suited us and our car uses its tyres well here. Tomorrow is going to be challenging with the weather, but we are in the best position we can be going into the race!”

The first day of track action over in Shanghai has seen another confident start for those aboard the four V8 Vantage GTE's despite some very difficult track conditions.

This mornings first Free Practice saw the #90 GTE Am car from TF Sport eager to demonstrate an early benchmark finishing not just the fastest Aston Martin but the second fastest GTE car overall but still 1.8 seconds behind the class leading #81 BMW. Back in class groups the #97 car of Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin ended that session in P3 with its sister #95 car of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim P9 in the now eleven strong class with the addition of a single Corvette C7R for the event.
This afternoons second Free Practice session of the day was equally productive (although track times had slowed presumably with the track conditions) by consolidating P3 and P4 in the Pro class whilst the two Am class AMR's had presumably eased off to finish the day in P4 and P8 for the TF Sport and AMR car respectively.

Tomorrow morning sees the final Free Practice session of the meeting before an all telling Qualifying session where the effects of the most recent readjustments in the GTE cars the Balance of Performance will be all telling.


The weather forecast for tomorrow appears to be dryer than today however race day on Sunday again appears to hold the distinct possibility of rain. If we cast our minds back to Fuji, the two GTE Pro cars were the pick of the bunch whilst the track remained wet loosing out only in that short window in-between wets being the preferred choice to that of slicks being the optimum. Lessons will have been learned by the team from that transitional period of the race.

At the moment things look promising - only time will tell!

Photo credits - AMR / TF Sport

Today may have seen the first customer tests with the new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 at Oulton Park as the new race car reaches its final stages of development ahead of its formal homologation early next year.

With three British GT race teams being announced as holding the first batch of orders for both new platforms at the final round of the national championship back in September - two such  teams (TF Sport and Optimum Motorsport) have since gone on to announce a part driver line up for at least one of their new GT4 cars for British GT in 2019.


Academy Motorsport (the other remaining team announced to receive early examples of the new GT4) were of course also the first team to secure their team name across the side of an actual example of the new car back at Donington Park. Today we understand was theirs (and others) first on track experience of the new car with a number of potential drivers present.

Both the new GT3 and GT4 Vantage recently underwent an extensive endurance test at the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France earlier this month with most of the factory teams GTE Pro driver line up. The new GT3 has already under gone a number of customer tests around the country to present the factory team and Prodrive with a very healthy order book for both platforms.


A great insight into the development of both the GT3 and GT4 cars can be found in this Dailysportscar.com piece HERE.

Photo credits - AMR /social media

Having secured back-to-back podium positions at Silverstone and Fuji Speedway, TF Sport carry forward great momentum into the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship which takes places this coming weekend (16-18 November) at Shanghai International Circuit.

The event marks the team’s first visit to China as they prepare for the 6 Hours of Shanghai and then their Asian Le Mans Series debut with Red River Sport the following weekend.

The team has enjoyed great results already this year in WEC, finishing a fighting second on their debut at Spa Francorchamps, while seeking victory at Silverstone ahead of a late race penalty that ultimately resulted in another runner-up position. Last time out at Fuji, the team were again the bridesmaid, so heading to China, the top step of the podium is the natural target.

Aston Martin Racing is looking to end 2018 on a high in this weekend’s Chinese round of the FIA World Endurance Championship – the last competitive outing for the Aston Martin Vantage GTE this year.

The new car enjoyed its strongest showing yet at Fuji Speedway, in Japan, last time out where it took the GTE Pro class pole and led one-two in damp conditions for the first hour before going on to secure its fourth double-points finish of the season. And now looking ahead to Shanghai, where an Aston Martin Racing Vantage has featured on every podium since the championship began in 2012, the team’s drivers are confident the upward trend will continue.

“I would say I am even more motivated now that we have the first pole for the car,” said Nicki Thiim, who shared the Fuji pole-winning #95 Aston Martin Vantage with fellow Dane Marco Sørensen. “The potential is being unlocked and there is so much more to come. China is a great place to go, especially the track which is a big challenge. There are lots of high speed corners that suit our new Aston Martin Vantage GTE so I’m sure we are going to be strong. If you take the average of all the GTE PRO cars it is so close now that one mistake can put you out of contention, but that’s why it is the best class in the FIA WEC.”

Originally pencilled in for next weeks 24H Series visit to the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, Florida based team Automatic Racing have instead opted for something more local with a single V8 Vantage GT4 entry into this weekends Classic Daytona meeting.

Team Regular Steven Davison is this weekend joined by British GT racer Finlay Hutchison aboard the teams #22 car as the young Scot embarks on a busy winter season with this event as well as a drive at the forthcoming SRO GT Festival in Bahrain. For Daytona he is listed as sharing both the AMR GT4 as well as a historical Jaguar XKE in the multi programme event which has started well for Davison with a class win in todays earlier Trans-Am race.



The timetable for the remaining races of the event can be found HERE

Photo credits - Social media

Aston Martin has announced that it will enter in to an important new partnership with the successful German racing team PROsport Performance based near the Nürburgring, close to the home of the British brand’s AMR Performance Centre in Germany.

The agreement, which features the highest level of partner support from Aston Martin Racing, includes a two-car attack on Germany’s leading GT championship – the ADAC GT Masters – in 2019 with the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Moreover, one of those two Vantage GT3s will be driven by a pair Aston Martin Racing works drivers.

 In addition to this, PROsport Performance, the newly-crowned European 24h GT Series Drivers and Teams champion, will enter two Aston Martin Vantage GT4s in the new ADAC GT4 Germany series. It will also enter two in the GT4 European Series – where the team has collected three championship titles (Drivers PRO/AM and Team in 2016 and Drivers AM in 2013). Some of PROsport’s younger drivers will also be eligible to be part of the AMR Young Driver Academy.

This latest partnership announcement from Aston Martin represents a strong advocation for the new Aston Martin Vantage, of which the GT3 variant underlined its potential on its competitive race debut in the eighth round of the VLN on the Nürburgring Nordschliefe last month, running trouble-free and finishing fourth overall.

PROsport is a highly-decorated motorsport organisation that specialises in GT racing with a record of consistent success that charts all the way back to its formation by team owner and former racer Christoph Esser in 2006. Among its accolades, are five class victories in the Nürburgring 24 Hours and more than 50 class wins in the circuit-based VLN Championship.

Esser said: “Aston Martin has a unique tradition in motorsport. To represent this brand makes us very proud. In close partnership with Aston Martin Racing, PROsport Performance will do its utmost to continue its successful history. The new Vantage has everything it needs to compete against the strongest competition in the GT3 and the GT4.”

President of Aston Martin Racing, David King added: “We are delighted to add PROsport Performance to our race partner team roster with the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars. The introduction of our new Vantage comes at a time when Aston Martin is expanding our motorsport and customer racing activities around the world. Adding teams the calibre of PROsport Performance signifies a clear statement of intent not only to demonstrate our capabilities as a leading producer of GT racing cars but as one that competes to win at the highest level.”


Source material - AMR

Both GTE classes competing at Shanghai next weekend for the fifth round of the transitional Super season of the World Endurance Championship next weekend appear to have been 'all thrown up into the air' again after sweeping adjustments have been made to almost every cars balance of performance after the previous and highly eventful round at Fuji last month.

Of course, at the previous round at Fuji, Aston Martin Racing enjoyed the benefit of a consistent BoP going into that round together with further development with their new for 2018 V8 Vantage GTE allowed the two GTE Pro cars to throw down the gauntlet to their class opposition to secure their cars first GTE pole for Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen in the #95 car with a supporting P3 start for Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn in the #97 car.


That early promise for the Pro cars unfortunately failed to last the course as changing conditions on the Fuji circuit (weather and incident related) forced all teams to made rapid decisions as to continuing car set up yet despite both cars again finishing the race, their final positions on the timing and scoring chart was disappointingly (for them) much lower than first hope.

That however was inversely to the fate enjoyed by the two GTE Am cars where for the #98 and #90 cars started from lower down the grid than first hoped to both finish (after numerous post race penalties were applied) on the podium with TF Sport's Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Jonny Adam nudging out Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda to the higher step.


This weeks announcement from the FIA's Endurance Committee sees almost every make and model of car running in both GTE classes affected by a change (positive or negative) of some description.

For the AMR Pro cars, Shanghai will see them race 6kg lighter, with fractionally more available boost but with 2 litres less fuel capacity. That should see the #97 and #95 cars run faster but with the price of a potential higher fuel consumption and distance. In GTE Am, both V8 Vantages will run 10kg heavier than Fuji with the only unchanged platform being the Ferrari 488 GTE's in the Am class.


The reasons for the these changes we don't yet know - we will leave that and refer you to those of permanent WEC media who know better than we do as it certainly goes against what was first laid out by the Championship and their automatic BoP system to limit the number of changes per season.


Photo credits - AMR / TF Sport

We bumped into an old friend at Snetterton yesterday with the venerable Beechdean AMR V12 Vantage GT3 out ready to re-acclimatise one of their latest driving recruits all in readiness for the Gulf 12Hrs next month.

One quarter of the already announced driver line up in Ross Gunn was immediately on hand to shake the car down ready for Humaid al Masaood to get more seat time ahead of the event after having some simulator time earlier this week - if he ever turned up that is as we had to leave before he had arrived - quite close to lunchtime with business commitments keeping him very busy.

No stranger to a race car or even Snetterton after having driven in the American Le Mans Series British GT and various longer endurance races, the Emiriti driver has apparently been out of the race seat for a couple of years and needed reacclimatise himself with the inner workings of an Aston Martin Racing car - which was the plan for Snetterton but how it progressed- we don’t know!

Masaood will share the new Beechdean AMR V8 turbo Vantage GT3 with Andrew Howard, Ross Gunn and Chris Dyson.

Little over three weeks since finally testing the new Aston Martin Racing V8 turbo changed Vantage GT3 at what turned out to be a rather wet Snetterton race track back in October, Graham Davidson has today confirmed his progression from first year graduate to potential championship contender with a deal to race one of TF Sport's new GT3 cars alongside AMR factory Jonny Adam in the 2019 British GT Championship.

Having stepped up from GT Cup at the end of 2017 as overall champion, Davidson teamed up with Jetstream Motorsport to run the former Motorbase V12 Vantage GT3 alongside AMR factory driver Maxime Martin. Originally planned to run with a very talented pay driver, the team finally elected for that crucial factory assistance and guidance that only a professional driver could bring that allowed the 'rookie' team finish seventh overall in the British GT Championship with a race win at Spa Francorchamps to boot.

“I’m looking forward to starting our testing programme next year and getting to work with the Aston Martin,” Connor said. “It’s also great to continue with Optimum Motorsport and I’m looking forward to working with my new teammate, even though I don’t know who that is yet!

“The AMR Young Driver Academy is obviously very interesting to me, but I also know that the early part of the season at least will be something of a learning curve. I hope to be at the sharp end as soon as possible, getting solid finishes and making progress race by race.”

Todays revealing by the SRO of their provisonal entry list for the inaugural GT4 International Cup event in Bahrain at the end of November has confirmed that the Generation AMR SuperRacing V8 Vantage GT4 will be the sole AMR representative in that event.

With the International Cup running in support of the FIA GT Nations Cup headline event, the new SRO sanctioned race will again see long time driving partners James Holders and Matt George take to the circuit in two 60 minute Qualifying races followed by a 60 minute race with a grid of twenty other entries.

Having previously raced together in the British GT and the then GT4 European Series Northern and Southern Cups, the duo have this year limited their racing together mainly to their preferred French FFSA GT4 Series. It was directly after that Series final race at Paul Ricard that their car was packed away for shipping out to the Middle East.


With this event taking place two weeks and little over 500 miles from the Gulf 12Hr from Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, this winter should see the team compete in both events and see out their racing campaigns for the year together in the venerable V8 Vantage.


The more observant will notice the team name of Academy Motorpsort also appearing on the entry list of the GT4 InternationalCcup with team boss Matt Nichol-Jones this time sharing a McLaren 570S GT4 with Finlay Hutchison. Obviously too early for these guys to get their hands on one of their new V8 Vantage GT4's that they have on order!

Photo credits - FFSA / Gulf 12Hr

Having Qualified an extremely close third on the grid for the start of Saturday's Intercontinental GT Challenge California 8 Hours of Laguna Seca, Florida based Automatic Racing and their V8 Vantage GT4 were looking to avenge the memory that was their last outing at the event last year which ended after just lap 3.

#The sveltely liveried #22 Stoner Car Care was started by team regular Charles Espenlaub, who although having dropped back to P6 in the initial laps soon recovered to run and contest for P2 in the GT4 class just behind the then class leading Ginetta and all was soon looking comfortable for the team with a car that looked extremely quick on the straights.


Disaster for the team was to strike however at the end of the first hour mark when the car suddenly slowed before stopping just before the infamous 'corkscrew' at the back of the circuit with the lack of fuel being cited as the cause. Loosing valuable time and laps to their class rivals, the corner workers were at least able to use the downward slope of the corkscrew to get the car back into pit lane under its own momentum but by the time that Charlie Pittman had got in, refuelled and left he was already three laps down.

"Pretty unbelievable and frustrating' was the quote from the cars third driver Eric Lux at the time.

Despite putting their heads down and piling in the laps the #22 car was later to receive a severe time sanction form Race Control for an 'unquantified' transgression that lost them a further seven and a half minutes whilst it was dealt with - basically destroying any remaining possibility of a decent finish in the process.


The final 'icing on the cake' came with just under an hour remaining when an electrical gremlin put the car out of the race and ended the team's somewhat mixed season on something of a downer.

Photo credits - SRO

Three of Aston Martin Racing’s most valued partner teams will have the opportunity to race the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for the first time when they participate in the Gulf 12 Hours event at the Yas Marina Circuit, in Abu Dhabi, on December 15.

Oman Racing with TF Sport spearheads the Aston Martin challenge in the PRO class, having finished third overall in the event in 2015, and second in the PRO/AM class last year. The team features two works drivers; three-time Le Mans class winner Darren Turner (GB) and team regular Jonny Adam (GB) in its line-up alongside Ahmad Al Harthy (OM).

TF Sport, which campaigns an Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE in the FIA World Endurance Championship and ran V12 Vantage GT3s in the 2018 Blancpain Endurance Series and British GT Championships, has already confirmed it will race the new Vantage GT3 in the UK next year.

Alongside TF Sport in the PRO class will be R-Motorsport, a winner and record three-time consecutive pole setter on its debut season in the Blancpain Endurance Series with the V12 Vantage GT3 and a loyal long-time campaigner of Aston Martin racing cars. This entry will be a contender for victory on its race debut and will run with regular drivers Jake Dennis (GB) and Marvin Kirchhöfer (GER). A third driver is yet to be confirmed.

In the PRO AM class and another team making its race debut is Beechdean AMR, running a Vantage GT3 for two-time British GT and European Le Mans Series champion Andrew Howard (GB), Humaid al Masaood (UAE), Chris Dyson (USA) and works driver Ross Gunn (GB).

TF Sport team principal Tom Ferrier said: “It’s an honour to be among the first customers to race the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3, a car for which we have high hopes. We’ve already committed to racing it in the British GT Championship in 2019 and we’re excited to find out what the car is capable of in competitive conditions in the Gulf 12 Hours.”

Beechdean AMR team owner Andrew Howard said: “Having been the first team to run the outgoing multiple race and championship winning Vantage, it is a real privilege to be part of a line-up with the first AM drivers to race the new Vantage GT3. We have been lucky enough to test the prototype and if that is anything to go by, then it will be as big a leap from the current car as the Vantage was from the glorious DBRS9. Another great step forward by Aston Martin.”

R-Motorsport team principal Florian Kamelger said: “We are really excited to run the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 on its debut outing outside Europe. The challenging event in Abu Dhabi will give us the best opportunity to test the car in a long-distance race before we run it in 2019.”

Aston Martin Racing President David King said: “Handing the keys of the new Vantage GT3s to our top partner teams to race in Abu Dhabi is the next critical step in the car’s development ahead of its planned homologation early next year. The Vantage GT3 has performed exceptionally well in its test and development programme to date and proved highly competitive on its Nürburgring Nordschleife debut in October. Primarily a car built for top level customers to race, we’re confident it will be a potent force in the Gulf 12 Hours and the feedback from our partner teams will no doubt be invaluable in refining the car prior to wider customer team supply next year.”

The eighth edition of the Gulf 12 Hours, which comprises two six-hour races, takes place on 15 December from 0900 local time.


Source material - Aston Martin Racing