Three Aston Martin Vantage GT4 kick off the 2025 VP Racing Sportscar Challenge at Daytona
After the success of the LMP3 and GTX (GT4) classes last season, the GTDX (GT3) class was added for this season and that has helped swell the numbers up to thirty-three entries for last weekend’s opening two races of the season.
Again featuring two well-known entries from both the Rebel Rock Racing and Automatic Racing AMR stables, they were both joined by another Aston Martin Racing customer team stepping up to the challenges of IMSA racing for the first time. Frank DePew was a constant within his #72 Rebel Rock AMR Vantage GT4 Evo ‘Marty’ the zebra entry of last season but both the #09 Automatic entry of Matt Siegal and the #89 89X Motorsport entry of Chris Tasco were both fielding older 17A variants of the Vantage GT4.
Starting the season under clear blue skies and sunshine of Saturday afternoon, DePew’s season got off to a bad start after multiple contact with the former Aston Martin racer Matt Dalton’s driven BMW caused damage to the Aston Martin at the bus stop in the opening laps. For the other two AMR powered drivers – it was the first of a whole lot of new!!
By the end of the first forty-five-minute races, the best result of this trio came from Siegal after he finished P24 overall/P8 in GSX whilst Tasco was further behind in P31 overall/P12 in class.
Sundays second race of the weekend was under wholly different track conditions after torrential rain and squally winds hit the circuit for the first time within this Roar before the 24 test. That meant for a race start under FCY track conditions but at the lights went to green, the spray on track intensified.
With slippery track conditions, limited visibility and bronze rated drivers out on track – the inevitable offs were only to be expected but without injury or significant damage to those involved, these periods of caution were otherwise limited to the mid-period of the race.
By the end, it was DePew who would this time take the accolade of lead AMR powered driver as he came home P24 overall and P10 in class whilst Siegal finished P13 in class and Tasco P16 to round off their opening race weekend of the season.
Photo credits – Teams / social media
A late call up for Jamie Day at the Abu Dhabi 6hr
Again, fielding their #77 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo for drivers Setiawan Santoso and brothers Mukong and Tanart Sathienthirakul after their series debut together just the weekend before at the Dubai 24, overnight sickness between Qualifying and race day for Thai TCR Asia racer Mukong meant that a late replacement had to be called in.
However, that driver change put paid to their collective qualifying efforts of Saturday to land them starting Sunday’s race from near last in the grid of fifty-two cars in fortieth position.
At the end of the first of a six-hour race, the #77 car was already up within the top twenty overall before falling back outside of that margin by the time the race had reached its halfway stage. That position remained about the same as the drivers continued to cycle through their available stint lengths before the car was eventually brought home in P21 overall, nineth within their new Pro-Am class but only four laps behind the overall winner.
That and their P6 result in class from Dubai has left the team third overall in class by the end of this mini–Middle East Trophy Series. The team will now redirect their thoughts and attentions to the next four races of the Asian Le Mans Series that will be ran at both Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina in February.
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media
Roar before the 24 Update
Whilst the headlining Weathertech Sportscar Championship and its four AMR Vantage GTD powered crews have been going about their media business earlier today, we (yes, we may have missed it) have still not heard of why Marco Sorensen’s name has been struck from the #007 Heart of Racing GTD Pro entry but we’re sure that that will come, and the reason will be quite self-explanatory!
Early timing results suggest no issues for the #44 Magnus Racing and #19 Van Der Steur GTD’s but the #27 Heart of Racing car did only do two installation laps during the opening session, without posting a lap time. The others all finished the session comfortably within the top ten per class.
The only issue has been with the #64 Team TGM entry – this time being listed as only completing one revolution of the Daytona circuit within the first session. The #82 Van Der Steur entry of Brady Behrmann and Sammy Smith is electively not at this test weekend anyway.
That has now changed to just three with the #3 Fast MD Racing team electing to swap to an Audi R8 GT4 chassis instead. Drivers Matthew Siegal has now been confirmed within the #09 Automatic Racing 17A model entry with Frank DePew within his #72 Evo entry of last season again and Christopher Tasca confirmed within the #89 89X Motorsport 17A model entry as well.
This series will run its first two races of its 2025 campaign this weekend, so time is more of an essence for them that the MPC runners.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
Just some of this weeks AMR powered announcements
There has been however, some other news coming out of other AMR powered camps that contained some rather more robust news to suggest that they are actual plans rather than desires moving forward.
Earlier this week, we saw the historic racing Oselli Motorsport team confirm their venerable #95 AMR Vantage GT4 into the GT Cup Championship’s for their gentleman driver Matt Eddolls and today, the Feathers Motorsport team have also confirmed the return of both James Guess and Tom Canning aboard their slightly newer #82 entry.
Whilst we saw Oselli look for willing participants this time last season (to no avail), it will be great to see at least two generations of the Vantage GT4 compete within the six round season starting at Donington Park in late March. We may even get to see a new 2024 Evo model run as well if that different team elects to go that way. None the less, two cars is a great start to the year.
Then, perhaps the bigger news came out today that the Australian based Volante Rosso has backed up upon their earlier disclosure and confirmed their three-driver roster into their entry into the Bathurst 12hr in just two weeks’ time.
Sporting a young but dynamic line up in British GT GT4 Silver Cup champion (and recently disclosed winner of the AMR Drivers Academy process for 2024) Jamie Day and FFSA GT4 Silver Champion Mateo Villagomez. They will race alongside local Supercars and GT World Challenge Asia racer Jaylen Robotham within what we still assume to be a 16A version of the Vantage GT3.
Day was supposed to have raced with the team within the Sydney Motorsport Park round of last seasons GT World Challenge Australia Series but technical issues with the car doing the early stages of that meeting put paid to that with Day then racing one of the team's Radicals at the event after that.
Photo credits – Team / series / social media
AMR powered news still to be had over this Roar before the 24 test weekend
At the top of the pile, the Weathertech Sportscar Challenge has already confirmed the driver listings with all of the Heart of Racing, Magnus Racing and Van Der Steur Racing Vantage GTD entries although we have yet to see any of the cars in the flesh.
The #007 Heart of Racing GTD Pro entry (which is in lieu of the delayed Valkyrie GTP effort due to go on-line at the next round of the season at Sebring) did have a four-driver line up, but we see that Marco Sorensen has since been removed from the Ross Gunn, Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis effort. Not sure what is happening there?
They will be joined by their sister #27 GTD entry of Tom Gamble, Casper Stevenson, Zacharie Robichon and Mattea Drudi. With both cars, we are assuming that their race livery will be somewhat similar to previous years but again, we cannot say so for sure.
Likewise with the #44 Magnus Racing AMR GTD effort of John Potter, Andy Lally, Spencer Pumpelly and Nicki Thiim who join forces again at this event for what is their swansong adventure in the series for the determinable future.
Whilst the Weathertech Sportscar Championship grid is at Daytona for both testing and qualifying ahead of next weekend’s Rolex 24, the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series are there purely for elective testing.
Four of the five AMR Vantage GT4 runners will however be at the Roar test with the Van Der Steur team this fielding a completely new bronze cup rated driver line up in Christine and Ben Sloss in the #15 GT4 Evo alongside both the #46 and #64 Team TGM entries of Matt Plumb/Paul Holton and Hugh Plumb/Ted Giovanis/Kris Wilson respectively – also aboard their two new GT4 Evo’s.
Robin Liddell, Andrew Davis plus one TBC join forces aboard the returning #71 Rebel Rock Racing GT4 Evo whilst Brady Behrman’s #82 Van Der Steur Vantage GT4 will not be at the Roar test but will be at the opening four-hour round to the series alongside GT racing newbie (but competent NASCAR tin top racer) Sammy Smith.
Again, the #15, #46, and #64 entries will be brand new Vantage GT4 Evo’s, and all might be sporting different liveries that we may have been used to seeing them in?
The biggest amount of information flow is however required with the AMR Vantage GT4 entries within the VP Racing Sportscar Challenge Series as presently, none of the four cars entered have a drivers name listed.
Familiar names from the Automatic Racing and Rebel Rock Racing teams return to the series for 2025 but we also have new names and entries from the FastMD Racing with Remstar and 89X Motorsport for their respective #3 AND #89 entries. All bar the #09 Automatic Racing entry are listed as running the new Evo version, but we suspect the #89 car will also be the older 17A version since they purchased last year’s #19 Van Der Steur chassis from that team at the end of last season.
This series will also be racing their first two races of the season during the Roar weekend with a fifty-minute race over both Saturday and Sunday.
There will of course be plenty of information to be had over the weekend as that testing and preparation swiftly turns into race preparation in its earnest as both the Weathertech Sportscar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge start their 2025 campaigns at the Daytona International Speedway next weekend.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
EBM confirm their driver line up within this weekends Abu Dhabi 6hr
That leaves bronze ranked driver Setiawan Santoso running alongside the Sathienthirakul brothers (Munkong and Tanart) as the team look for that critical car data ahead of their next visit to both Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina within the Asian Le Mans Series next month.
Unofficial track action will begin on Wednesday with the first of three track day sessions before three further test sessions on Friday before Free Practice and class Qualifying on Saturday before a green flag to the race at 10:30hrs (local) on Sunday.
Photo credits – 24H Series / Team / social media
SRO USA news from the Heart of Racing camp today
Today’s news saw reiterated the position of Gray Newell moving up to the GT3 class with the SRO America GT World Challenge America Series with one of their Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo with a full season driving partnership alongside AMR Factory driver Darren Turner.
Starting as a racing novice within both the GT America and GT4 America Series with an AMR Vantage GT4 back in early 2021, Newell embarked upon his new career under the guiding hand of Team Manager Ian James before more that mantel was more recently handed over to fellow team racer Roman De Angelis, mainly thanks to the diary clashes with the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Having raced GT3’s on and off within other series including last weekend’s 24H Series annual pilgrimage to the Dubai 24, this season will be Newell’s first full season within GT3 and Turner’s first experience of the SRO America series and many of the circuits scheduled for this year’s seven event, thirteen race calendar.
On top of that news, the team also confirmed the return of their amazing all female driver line up within the GT4 America Series as both Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeier join forces again in what maybe this time, one of the teams new AMR Vantage GT4 Evo that Newell and De Angelis debuted towards the end of last season.
Undoubtedly talented, the two Hannah’s championship ambitions were somewhat blighted with continual class changes having started within the Am class before being moved into Pro-Am before finishing the bulk of last season within the more competitive silver class. Hopefully that issue will be determined before the cars hit the track of Sonoma for the first time in late March.
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media / D Gibson
Two gutsy displays from two Aston Martins in this weekends Dubai 24 start 2025 off in earnest
The twentieth running of the 24H Series running of the Dubai 24 has just concluded and the race again did itself proud for the Creventic organisers and its sixty plus, multi-classed entries although it didn’t necessarily prove itself that way for some.
Indeed, one of the three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo’s entered didn’t actually make it to the race itself on Saturday morning after final night practice for the #41 Comtoyou Racing entry saw accident damage sustained whilst Russian driver Viacheslav Gutak was at the wheel.
That #40 Comtoyou Racing AMR of Jamie Day, Tom Van Rompuy, Matisse Lismont and Kobe Pauwels proved itself to be a class contender within their own GT3 Pr0-Am class during the opening half of the race before heavy contact from behind by the #710 Liepert Motorsport Lamborghini sent the #41 AMR destined for a too long a stop within its garage box for repairs to keep it anywhere in contention.
Eventually finishing eighteen laps down to the eventual winner, the #40 finished just outside of the top twenty in twenty - first position but that could easily have been so different had the car not been penalised so many times for track limits and/or speeding or overtaking whilst the race was under caution!! Despite of this, this was a great display from the young driver line up!
The best result however came from the #77 Earl Bamber Motorsport AMR Vantage GT3 team who, in their first 24-hour race eventually came home eighteenth overall and sixth within the GT3 Pro-Am class.
Despite running with a varied crew in terms of experience with two amateurs, one semi-Pro and one Pro driver, the Setiawan Santoso, Munkong and Tanart Sathienthirakul alongside Earl Bamber driven car went onto run a near flawless race to receive just one sixty second time penalty for overtaking during a caution period with no incidents to report on track!
Whilst we still await official confirmation from the Comtoyou Racing team about their 2025 campaigns, the EBM team will be back in 24H Series based racing next weekend at the 6hours of Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina before being back to the Asian Le Mans Series with the same car but another crew at these two very circuits in early February.
Photo credits – 24H Series / Teams / social media
Grid set ahead of the 20th running of the 24H Series Dubai 24
Fielding another impressive grid of sixty-four mixed class entries, this year’s entry sees three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 Evo’s entered – two from the Belgian based Comtoyou Racing team and another from the Asian based Earl Bamber Motorsport team.
The nett result from Qualifying was that the #40 Comtoyou Racing AMR of Jamie Day Kobe Pauwels, Matiss Lismont and Tom Van Rompuy was the pick of the three as they will be starting the race from P16 overall / P5 within their own Pro-Am class.
Next will be the #77 EBM AMR of Setiawan Santoso, Munkong and Tanart Sathienthirakul alongside team boss himself, Earl Bamber will be starting from P21 overall – P8 in GT3 Pro-Am whilst the #41 Comtoyou entry of Viacheslav Gutak, Dante Rappange, Nicolas Baert and Mex Janson will be starting P25 overall – P7 in class after their three-run average was calculated.
Morning warm up at 09:40 starts the day off tomorrow with official photos within the pit lane preceding a 13:00hrs (local) start to the Dubai 24 at the Dubai Autodrome.
Photo credits – Series / Teams / Series
Racing Spirit of Leman join the ranks exploring GT4 Winter Series next weekend
Having already mentioned the benefits of starting your racing season earlier than your competitors like Aston Martin Racing Drivers Academy winner Jamie Day did last season, this season’s opening round of the GT4 Winter Series confirms two AMR powered crews for its visit to Estoril next weekend.
The solo driven #700 Thilo Goos car from the BWT Mucke Motorsport stable has already been listed before at the tail end of last season, but today’s release of their provincial entry list also includes a new 2024 Vantage GT4 Evo from the Racing Spirit of Leman team.
A now regular entry within the teams GT4 European Series attack above the last two seasons, Baudouin Detout has already used ad-hoc entries within other series to help him gain the required experience and race craft to carry forward into his regular season and his and American co-driver Max Hewitt inclusion will be no different within their #39 Pro class entry.
Both AMR crews join a list of ten other GT4 entries for this opening race weekend which will include two thirty-minute sprint races and an hours endurance race per race weekend over the allotted five regular rounds (with two further endurance rounds only if that takes their fancy.
Live coverage of each race should be available via the Series YouTube channel.
Photo Credit – Teams / Series / social media
Jamie Day scoops the coveted AMR Drivers Academy prize for 2024
Building on previous successes within an Aston Martin over the two previous season’s, Day claimed early seasonal success last year as the Norfolk based Forsetti team entered the upward coming GT4 Winter Series (alongside Mikey Porter) where they enjoyed near dominant performances to take the Spanish/Portuguese based series before his main attentions within both the British GT Championship and GT4 European Series had even started.
Hitting that championship at a more of a gallop and despite having swapped between the outgoing 17A variant to the new 2024 Vantage GT4 Evo, Day and Porter ended their season togther with the Silver Class title before Day then touched into the GT3 class with Prosport Racing at the Spa Francorchamps rounds of the ADAC GT Masters Series.
Presently racing with the Belgian Comtoyou Racing team at this weekend’s 24H Series Dubai 24 with one of their new Vantage GT3 Evo’s, part of Day’s reward was a fully supported factory test within the Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 at Snetterton at the end of last year under the watchful eye of Jonny Adam.
Day takes over from last year’s winner in Mike David Ortmann and follows an illustrious bunch of previous winners in Ross Gunn, Tom Canning, Romain Leroux, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Roman De Angelis.
Photo Credits – AMR / Teams / Social Media
Plenty of AMR participation within both Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Racing Sportscar Challenge this season
Scanning through the entry lists for both series, there is still a lot of familiarity but also a whole new load of new scattered amongst them as the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 Evo becomes the norm this time around after a season where only the Rebel Rock Racing team where competing with such a machine.
The Van Der Steur team are back within the series with a Bronze Cup entry for newcomers Christine and Ben Sloss within their new #15 AMR Evo with Robin Liddell this time pairing up with Andrew Davis within their #71 Rebel Rock entry making for four new Vantage GT4 Evo’s at the Roar test.
Then at the four-hour opener a week later, that total entry number will swell to forty-two cars with Brady Behrman returning with his 17A variant of the AMR Vantage GT4 alongside co-driver Sammy Smith as confirmed earlier today. He will again be competing with the help of the Van Der Steur team with his #82 entry.
A change to the rule sett of the VP Racing Sportscar Challenge sees the GT3 class join that of the LMP3 and GTX (GT4) cars of last season with thirty-three runners listed for the opening two races of the season during the Roar weekend.
Within the sixteen strong GSX class we will see the return of the #72 Rebel Rock entry as well as the #09 Automatic Racing team – both with TBC still listed under the drivers name. We do however see two new AMR teams listed - #3 FastMD Racing with Remstar and the more known 89X Motorsport team (from their World Racing League AMR Vantage GT4 exploits) with their #89 entry – again, both entries still have a TBC under the solo driving position available per car. The #09 entry is again a 17A variant as do we believe the #89 to be as they purchased the former #19 car from the Van Der Steur team at the tale end of last season.
Things are certainly shaping up nicely!
Photo credits – Team / Series / social media
Van Der Steur complete their Rolex 24 driver line up
Announced by the team back in mid-September of last year, sees the Van Der Steur add an IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship Endurance Cup racing commitment to their plans for 2025 with what was then a step up to the GTD class for Rory Van Der Steur and his part 2024 Michelin Pilot Challenge GT4 season co-driver Valentin Hasse-Clot.
Fellow Frenchman, Maxime Robin was later added to the driver roster for of this season’s Rolex 24 opener from Daytona and today’s news also confirms that American racer Anthony McIntosh will join the #19 crew for this prestigious event as well as the other endurance rounds this season.
The Rolex 24 will be run over the weekend of 25th and 26th of January, but before that we will of course have the Roar before the 24 official test and Qualifying weekend the weekend before the main event for the extended IMSA grid which will also have three further Aston Martin’s from both the Heart of Racing and Magnus Racing teams amongst the sixty-one strong grid.
Photo credits – Team / IMSA / social media