Surprisingly without any of the available AMR factory allocation of drivers being utilised sees Dalla Lana again hook up with friend Augusto Farfus for a full WEC assault in the GTE Am Class having raced with him in the European Le Mans Series last season.

They in turn join forces with another name new to the AMR marque with Marcos Gomes joining his countryman (Farfus) and the Canadian businessman. With the AMR factory team also taking a back step from topflight GTE racing this season, the #98 will also now race under the Northwest AMR title.

Paul Dalla Lana said: “I’ve had great success with Aston Martin Racing over the past nine years and winning the title in 2017 in Bahrain was undoubtedly the highlight. However, I still have unfinished business at Le Mans and I believe we now have the best package of car, team and drivers to emulate 2017 and to secure our first Le Mans title.”

This car of course joins the two TF Sport entered Vantage GTE cars in the highly competitive racing area of GTE Am that this season features the largest category of all in the Championship with thirteen Am class entries due to attend.

Having already been delayed from the intended season opener at Portimao at the end of March, the WEC will formally get underway at their Prologue Test at Spa Francorchamps in two weeks’ time and ahead of the opening round at the Belgium circuit just three days later.

Whilst that is all good news – the ongoing exclusion of paying fans obviously isn’t.

Photo credits – AMR

Amongst the impressive thirty-eight car entry for this weekend four opening races will now feature four Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4’s – two being the older normally aspirated engine cars whilst two will be the newer 2019 specification, turbo charged model.

Long standing AMR runner and former GTH Class Champion, Chris Murphy again returns to the Championship as a solo driver with his older model of AMR GT4 competing in the GTB class along with the Deranged Motorsport squad of Matthew Lewis/Ollie Brown running their car in the GTH Class.

Joining these two entries will be the two new turbo charged AMR Vantage GT4’s from both Feathers Motorsport and Century Motorsport and their crews of James Guess with Darren Turner and David Holloway with former GTH Champion Adam Hatfield.

This won’t be the first time the latest AMR GT4 has competed in the Championship after Holloway ran an Optimum Motorsport prepared car at the Snetterton round in 2019 with the intention of running a full season entry in 2020 before COVID took care of that before Newbridge ran their new Vantage in selected rounds last season. Today we have had the first glimpses of the #15 Century Aston.

Hopefully, it will be better luck for all concerned this season.

2021 will indeed by another busy year for Turner as he will also be co-driving with another AMR Vantage GT4 Customer team in the GT Cup Championship that starts only next weekend.

“We know British GT is very competitive, but the success Newbridge and I achieved last season has given me a lot of confidence ahead of my debut,” said Topham. “Racing with an AMR driver who was part of the Vantage’s original development team will be a huge bonus. Darren also knows how to win a championship and has a lot of experience working within a Pro-Am environment. And that will be invaluable because we expect GT4 to feature many more Pro-Am entries this year.”

Turner added: “I’m really pleased to be back in British GT, joining Matt and Newbridge Motorsport. This championship is always competitive and I have no doubt that the 2021 season will be another absolute cracker. AMR is placing even more emphasis on its customer racing programmes this year and I will do my utmost to help Matt and the team achieve their goals. I really can’t wait to get started and enjoy my first season in the Vantage GT4.”

This announcement still only brings up the Aston Martin Racing based team head count up to two cars with the long since announced Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 entry for Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam. Whilst we already know about there be no full season programme this season in the Championship for the likes of TF Sport, we are still hopeful of at least another part time entry later this year.

The British GT Championship now starts at Brands Hatch on the 23rd May.

Photo credits – Newbridge / AMR / GT Cup

Sunday’s opener proved to be the most productive of the two races with three of the six Aston’s claiming a podium position with the #89 AGS car of Nicolas Gomar/Mike Parisy claiming the highest honours in Pro-Am with their P3 finish in class whilst both the team’s sister #007 and #161 cars of Valentin Hasse-Clot/Romain Leroux and Christophe Carriere/Didier Dumaine claimed P2 apiece in their Silver Cup and Am Classes respectively.

The remaining car from AGS Events, the #79 Am entry of Lauris Nauroy/Stephane Desbrosse only just finished off the podium in P4 in Am whilst the two new AMR runners from Mirage Racing and JSB Competition got valuable track time in to finish P10 and P12 in Pro-Am respectively in only their first race with their new AMR machinery.

Mondays second race of the weekend was equally dramatic but unfortunately included the first AMR DNF of the season as the #89 AGS car hit the barrier and deranged its steering early on but that disappointment was countered by the first class win for the #007 Silver Cup car (which also finished P2 overall as well) as well as another podium (P3 this time) for the #161 Am car.

The series now moves onto the second round from the Magny-Cours circuit in four weeks’ time.

Photo credits – FFSA / Teams

Whilst Quinn was able to take on the infamous 3.8mile public road circuit with confidence during Free Practice, Bailey kept things a little more reserved wanting to see out the full event at his first attendance at the circuit in his Vantage again in the presence of some sizable Aussie driving talent.

With race one yesterday, Quinn started fifth on grid (first in class) in the field of just seventeen runners whilst Bailey started further back in P12 as the Safety Car again set the clock in motion at the start of the warmup lap. Surprisingly and considering the Pro-Am nature of the grid, the race was to run its hour-long distance cleanly with no incident or accident out on track and considering the speed at which all were pushing the envelope – that was only a good thing!.

Quinn pushed former one time Bathurst V12 Vantage GT3 racer Tony Bates hard in his Audi in the opening laps with the two ‘senior in years’ drivers distinctly able to keep up with one another over the top. Bailey, meanwhile let the pack go through turn one on the opening lap unchallenged as he elected to take this steady this time with the thought of the solid concrete walls being able to cause more damage than a tyre wall!

As both Astons were with solo drivers again, both had to stop still in the allocated window but nothing more was required as both cars emerged in P7 overall – P1 in class for Quinn and P13 overall and P6 in class for Bailey by the end of the stop sequence.

With the Pro-Am entries now having their professional drivers aboard, it was unsurprising to see track position of both Aston drop as the laps counted down to end with Quinn securing another comfortable class win with Bailey a lap further back in P6 in class.

Sunday’s second race was nice an early as the GT3/GT4 series gave way to the headlining 6Hrs of Bathurst saloon car race later in the day. Again, Quinn would start form class pole in P7 whilst Bailey started from a familiar P12/P5 position.

Going into turn 1 on lap one three wide probably wasn’t a good idea in reflection for Quinn but he got away with it whilst Bailey again elected to see out the long game as a better option than another early race exit.

This time the pro drivers were in the cars ahead and they disappeared into the distance as Quinn battled things out for his class rivals in the #51 Lamborghini which was to be the case all the way through to his stop at the halfway mark.

As Quinn enjoyed a two-horse battle ahead, Bailey was in the depths of a four-horse battle for P12 overall with the #9 Am Class Audi ahead before a bullish move saw Bailey get past for track position only.

Having just served their stops, an error from another of Quinn’s class rivals saw his car nudge the wall and lose a wheel in the Dipper bringing out the Safety Car for the first time that weekend. Fortunately, only seven minutes were lost to that incident and that left a thirteen-minute dash to the flag for the remaining runners.

A late pass for Quinn took him up to P6 overall for another class win at Bathurst whilst Bailey had his best result of the season so far with a P9 overall finish – just off his Trophy Class podium in P4.

With points now on the board for Bailey and a clear class lead for Quinn in Am, the Series now takes another short break before the third round at The Bend Motorsport Park at the beginning of May.

Photo credits – GTWCA / Daniel Kalisz

AGS Events Racing come back to their national series with another quartet of cars whilst JSB Competition and Mirage Racing each step up to the very much in vogue AMR GT4 for the first time.

The AGS Events Racing Team again take the bull by the horns with another four-car entry (to match their commitments to their national FFSA GT4 Series) with only two crews being so far identified by the team.

Cesar Gazeau and Konstantin Lachenauer were the first two young guns identified by the team as moving up to GT4 racing for the first time and they will be joined by the pairing of Akhil Rabindra and Hugo Conde. Rabindra stays with the team but swaps back to the European Series having battled hard in the FFSA Series last season without success. Conde steps up from the FFSA Sprint Cup where he finished fourth in his Rookie year last season.

That obviously leaves two AGS Events cars with unidentified driver crews and class.

Joining these guys and returning to the series after a year’s sabbatical due to COVID is the Belgium based Street Art Racing who come back with a single car for their 2019 GT4 Am Champion Pascal Bachmann and a GT4 debuting Belgium racer Paul Theysgens. An inexperienced driver with Bachmann is no problem for the team of course after he guided an equally inexperienced GT driver Clement Seyler to the title.

This list misses out a number of other cars expected to be entered – particularly from the Swiss based R-Motorsport team after two late season entries last year but news elsewhere suggests that the team will also be sitting out 2021 as well.

With two weeks still remaining before the season start, only time will tell if any further entries will be accepted on a race-by-race basis.

Two full weeks of repairs and late pick ups of valuable parts flown in from Europe later and Bailey says his car is now ready to face its latest challenges in the Series this weekend as they visit the toughest circuit that Australia can offer at Bathurst.

Suffering from wholesale damages to the exterior of the car after its dramatic meeting with the tyre wall, the chassis thankfully remained straight but whilst some bodywork panels could be repaired, others had to be flown in from Europe. That has obviously put paid to the cars former Red Bull livery enjoyed at Phillip Island to something new and as yet not revealed. Bailey has put the cars new livery design into that of an “Art Car”.

That aside and Bailey’s AMR is again joined by the Tony Quinn turbo charged #7 AMR Vantage GT3 who races within the main Series’ AM Class.

Two class podium finishes from Quinn at the opening two races of the series at Phillip Island has him share the Class lead with the #91 Audi as the multi-class grid looks forward to two one-hour sprint races over The Mountain.

Both races are due to be shown live on the SRO’s YouTube channel for international viewers.

Photo credits – GTWCA / Bailey

Then the team will field two AMR’s into the Am Class – one for a returning pair of Didier Dumaine and Christophe Carriere and another for Lauris Nauroy and Stephane Desbrosse who finally get their chance to race together in a Aston.

Since these announcements back at the end of February we have since had both Mirage Racing and JSB Competition confirm a single Pro-Am entry each for Ruben Del Sarte/Yves Lemaitre and Julien Briche/Jean-Laurent Navarro respectively.

Like most SRO sanction GT4 series, the weekend format will take on two – one hour races over the Easter bank holiday weekend with both races streamed live (with French commentary) via the series social media channels. Like the lack of current photographs also suggest - we still have a few liveries to be unveiled too.

Can’t wait!!.