Aston Martin’s new Vantage GT3 secured its first podium finish in the season-ending Gulf 12 Hours endurance race at the Yas Marina Circuit, in Abu Dhabi.

Aston Martin partner team Beechdean AMR took the accolade by finishing third in the GT3 Pro Am class and seventh overall with its four-man line-up of team owner Andrew Howard (GB), Aston Martin Racing reserve driver Ross Gunn (GB), Chris Dyson (US) and Hamaid al Masaood (UAE).

“This is absolutely brilliant,” said Howard. “To be able to record the first podium for the new Aston Martin Vantage is amazing. The car is just fantastic, and especially in these conditions to drive a brand new car for 12 hours and finish on the podium against well-developed opposition is a great testament to it. Ergonomically, the cabin and the driving position is much better than the previous car. It is a pleasure to drive and when you are doing an endurance racing that’s what you want.”

Literally competing fresh from the Prodrive factory, the first batch of new customer 2019 specification V8 Vantage GT3's all completed the split running format that is the Gulf 12Hours event from Abu Dhabi to secure another 'first' for the new car and narrowly miss out on another.

Saturday's Qualifying had placed high hopes with the smaller, factory supported Vantage GT4 after its four driver line up, featuring age and experience together with youth and exuberance placed that car on class pole in its first ever competitive run out.

With the three Qualifying sessions earlier today ahead of the start of the latest running of the Gulf 12Hours event from the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, we appear still not to have any final qualifying positions ahead of the start of tomorrows race from the organisers.

We understand that the final Qualifying session was red flagged due to a (non serious) accident on track involving a Ferrari with just seconds remaining meaning that the session was not restarted. Since then (earlier this afternoon U?K time) penalties and resulting appeals have meant that the series organisers have been busy and have yet to publish their final grid order.


Taking inspiration from both Aston Martin Racing and those at Dailysportscar.com, we understand that the AMR prepared V8 Vantage GT4 of Mark Farmer, Tom Canning, Adrain Willmott and Ollie Wilkinson have indeed claimed pole in that class - a remarkable achievement!

In GT3 Pro-Am - the Beechdean AMR V8 Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard, Ross Gunn, Chris Dyson and Humaid Al Masood did hold provisional pole in their class for much of the session before finally qualifying P3 in class.

Team BRIT has announced its entry into the Britcar Championship in 2019, where it will be the only disabled team on the grid.

The team, consisting of injured military troops and civilian disabled drivers, will compete in its Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4, using its world-leading hand control technology.

To date, the team has competed in the UK Fun Cup Championship, in which its rookies learn to race. In 2019, rookies will begin in the new BMW 116 Trophy and more experienced drivers will race in Britcar.

The Britcar Endurance Championship sees a range of cars from GT supercars to touring cars and hot hatches competing in 2 x 60 minute races.

Team BRIT, which aims to be the first ever all-disabled team to race in the Le Mans 24 hour, made an impact in its Aston Martin this year, by becoming the first all-disabled team to race on the Le Mans circuit in the Aston Martin Le Mans Festival, held just prior to the annual endurance race.

After weeks of hectic work back at the Prodrive factory, the first three customer Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's finally made it to their destination at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi for this weekends Gulf 12Hours.

Still not fully homologated for the 2019 season, the three customer cars from Beechdean AMR, Oman Racing with TF Sport and R-Motorsport experienced their first track mileage today after a brief systems check back in the UK last week with their respective drivers putting their new chargers through their early shakedown and familiarisation stints ahead of the more formal sessions tomorrow.

These three new GT3 cars will also joined by their also yet to be homologated V8 Vantage GT4 that is being run by the factory team.


In the Pro class - the #97 Oman Racing by TF Sport car of Ahmad Al Harthy, Darren Turner and Jonny Adam were first out the garage in its familiar beautifully liveried blue, white and gold colour scheme.


Finally, but certainly by no means least we have a single V8 Vantage GT4 that will run within the GT4 class with another quartet of drivers in Ollie Wilkinson, Mark Farmer, Adrian Wilmott and Tom Canning running as the #95 car.

With just a few days left before the start to proceedings at the Gulf 12Hrs from Abu Dhabi, Aston Martin Racing have today confirmed a somewhat varied driver line up for their late GT4 entry into this weekends race events.

Announced off the back of their recent Partnership announcement with the Yas Marina circuit at the end of last month, it was confirmed that the new 2019 specification Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 would also be at the event alongside the three brand new 2019 specification V8 Vantage GT3's from Oman Racing with TF Sport, Beechdean AMR and R-Motorsport as previously announced.


Today announcement sees TF Sport's British GT driver Mark Farmer join Optimum's young GT Open driver Ollie Wilkinson with British GT Mercedes GT4 driver Tom Canning and historic racer Adrian Wilmott all in the new factory development car for its first competitive race (albeit in its present non homologated state like the three GT3's).

A wide ranging degree of talent and ability here although the new car is aimed directly towards the customer market from where all of these drivers come so all will be very keen to see just how the new car performs!

Good luck to all


Photo credit - AMR

Having missed the opening round of the 2018/19 Asian Le Mans Series from Shanghai late last month, Red River Sport's second Gentleman driver Ivor Dunbar was cast well and truly into the deep end for this mornings Qualifying for the second round in Fuji, Japan.

With Johnny Mowlems motorsport and mentoring business (Red River Sport) behind this TF Sport prepared Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 Asian Le Mans entry for the sole purpose of developing clients such as Dunbar and Bonamy Grimes to their full potential, it came as no surprise that Dunbar was left to Qualify their #5 car for Fuji just like Grimes had done in China despite other GT class entries fielding their fastest, and sometimes works factory drivers.

Only the forth team so far to publicly announce their imminent acquisition of two early examples of the 2019 specification Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 - German based Prosport Performance have today gone onto announce their first set of the drivers.

Competing in the ADAC GT Masters Series in one of their new GT3's will be AMR WEC and former British GT Racer Maxime Martin who will join former Callaway Corvette driver and former ADAC GT Masters racer Daniel Keilwitz within the new AMR Partner Team.


This highly proficient racing team has decided to swap over to the new turbo charged era of the AMR Vantage GT3 and GT4 which they will race the latter in both the ADAC German GT4 and European GT Series as the English marque pushes to broaden their horizons and success in the world GT market.

The challenge now for both the factory and the team is to get these new cars built and to their Partner teams in time for pre-season testing - the ADAC GT Masters itself starts at the end of April at Oschersleben.

Photo credits - Prosport

With still just under one hundred days to go before the next instalment of the FIA's World Endurance Championship from Sebring in Florida, a provisional entry list has been today published for what will the sixth round out of eight of this years transitional 'super-season'.

Thirty four entries are so far confirmed for the 1000km's of Sebring event that will be held straight off the back of the 12Hours of Sebring IMSA event in the middle of March 2019.

For the Aston Martin Racing fan, the only points of note is the return to a three driver line up for the two factory GTE Pro cars with Darren Turner rejoining Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim aboard the #95 car whilst Jonny Adam swaps back from the TF Sports GTE Am entry to rejoin Maxime Martin and  Alex Lynn in the #97 car.

This move comes as no surprise after the cars reconfigured to a two driver line up straight after Le Mans.


What is surprising however, is the unexpected 'TBA' aboard the #90 TF Sport entry following Adam's 'repatriation' to the factory GTE Pro car in readiness for the longer endurance race in Florida - we sort of had expected Euan Hankey's name to automatically reappear in the car alongside Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood but that is obviously yet to be confirmed.

We suppose that there is still plenty of time to wait and see who will take this available seat in the months ahead after all!

Just two weeks after competing at the opening round of the 2018/19 Asian Le Mans Series from Shanghai in China, many have been making their next long haul flight back to the Far East for the Series second round from the Fuji International in Japan this weekend.

Having arrived in Shanghai with a simple desire to enjoy themselves and learn from the experience, the crew of the #5 Red River Sport with TF Sport ended up giving themselves even more to cheer about with a well deserved podium finishing the 4Hours of Shanghai in P3 albeit with just two drivers.

With 2018 being the final year of factory assisted racing around the world for the extremely successful Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3, we bring to you our version a brief pictorial history of each of the forty five chassis made by the Prodrive factory since 2012.

This piece has been made possible with the kind support of Ivan at the Facebook Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 Chassis Number Tracking page and has been taken from the point in time towards the end of the end of Summer 2018. Whilst not every livery or race event has been listed, we have tried to illustrate the principle teams and series involved who between them have won a sizeable number of race and championship wins.

We are also hoping that Ivan goes on to expand upon all of these entries with further details that he has recorded in relation to drivers, races and finishes.

VANTAGEGT2-X3

Team - Aston Martin Racing - Test and development car
Location - UK


Team - Beechdean AMR - British GT/Blancpain
Location - UK
AMRVANTAGEGT3-001