As already posted, the Michelin Pilot Challenge again supports the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship this year which both start this weekend with the annual Roar before the 24 official test before the first round of their respective seasons next weekend.

Unlike the Weathertech Sportscar Championship, attendance at the Roar test for the GS and TCR cars that make up the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series is not compulsory so even the declared entry of forty-one cars is still not a true reflection on the exact number of cars that may turn up in time for the BMW Endurance Challenge four-hour opener next Friday.

What we did see from the entry list published by the series last week was that at least four Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4’s are expected at this weekend’s test with cars entered from both Volt Racing and Automatic Racing as well as one from a new team, NTE Sport.

Already posted this evening, we welcome back the #09 Stoner Car Care liveried Aston Martin from the locally based Automatic Racing team for their drivers Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi. Entered this year into the series new Bronze Cup Class, their desire to run with a third driver at Daytona was unfortunately scuttled when Brandon Kidd was elevated to silver status over the winter, but Kidd will at least be at the test with Abdolvahabi due to Ecklin’s prior business commitments elsewhere.

What was and maybe still is a vibrant yellow #7 AMR will be the return of the Volt Racing car and driver partnership of Alan Brynjolfsson and Trent Hindman for a third attempt at the GS Crown with their Aston Martin after early errors last season cost them a chance of the title.

Also, the second Automatic Racing entry will also be new entry into the IMSA sanctioned series as Paul Kiebler enters his #27 AMR Vantage GT4 with co-driver Jon Branam into the Bronze Cup Class and the Michelin Pilot Challenge for the first time. Having entered the SRO GT4 America and GT America Series last year but only from the midway point, this will be another step up in the racing ladder for these guys.

Finally, but by no means least has the all-new entry of the #12 NTE Sport AMR Vantage GT4 for drivers Manny Franco and Romeo Kapudija. Well known for their Audi/Lamborghini entries into the Weathertech Sportscar Championship’s GTD class, little is known or has been released by the team following this entry confirmation.

Hopefully more will be learned of these guys over the weekend.

Photo credits – CSJ Motorsport / F Lagunas / Teams

The Stoner Car Care Racing fielded by Automatic Racing team makes the short drive north on I-4 to Daytona International Speedway this week, as the Roar Before the Rolex 24 begins the 2022 season for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series.

Team veterans Rob Ecklin, Jr. and Ramin Abdolvahabi return behind the wheel of the No. 09 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin Vantage GT4, committed to battle for the Bronze Cup title in the series’ Grand Sport (GS) Class.

The Bronze Cup award is new for IMSA this year, with podium and season-end recognition to the top Bronze-rated finishers. Every driver in each car’s lineup must be Bronze rated and while both Ecklin and Abdolvahabi know the competition will be tough, they’re excited for the prospect as preparations continue for next weekend’s season opener, the BMW M Endurance Challenge.

While the three-day Roar event offers teams the chance to blow off the off-season rust, business obligations will preclude Ecklin’s attendance at the Roar.

“I’m very disappointed that business will keep me away this weekend,” said Ecklin, president of Lancaster, Pa.-based Stoner, Inc. “It’s a holiday tradition, to head immediately to Daytona! It’s such an iconic track – we’ve been there so often but every time you go feels so special. It’s going to be stiff competition in the Bronze Cup this season, with some very fast drivers in that category, so it’s going to be fun. It’s one more challenge to go after.”

With Ecklin not on hand this weekend, the team’s former endurance driver, Brandon Kidd, will step in to test the Aston Martin on Friday and get the setup ready for Abdolvahabi.

Kidd was recently upgraded to a Silver ranked driver, taking him out of eligibility for the Bronze Cup and curtailing his race plans for the year.

Abdolvahabi will use the remainder of the sessions on Saturday and Sunday to continue setup work and to bring himself back up to speed on the high banks and tight corners at Daytona.

“2022 presents an entirely new challenge with the new Bronze Cup,” said Abdolvahabi, a neurosurgeon in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “It’s great that our efforts to get this Bronze Cup in the series have paid off. It’s a motivation – we know that at this stage in the game, it’s unlikely that two Bronze drivers, or even a Silver and a Bronze, can go up against two Gold drivers. This gives us a level playing field and a way to get recognized for that. But for the Roar, the goal is to get back into the groove. We haven’t been in this car since Road Atlanta, so we’ll do some data gathering at Daytona and get some strategy going on. It’s a great warm up for next weekend.”

It will be quite busy in the Automatic Racing garage this weekend, as team manager David Russell will also field an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Paul Kiebler and Jon Branam.

“We’re looking forward to the Bronze Cup,” said Russell. “Rob and Ramin will run the full season, gunning for that title, and I think they have a good shot. The Bronze Cup concept is very popular around the world. The Bronze drivers are really the backbone of the series so I think IMSA will be surprised at how positive the outcome will be. There are so many guys who are not full-time race car drivers who are super competent on the racetrack so it’s good to recognize them.

“For the team, it’s great to start off with a home race, just 45 minutes up the highway,” Russell continued. “It’s so much more efficient, especially with the Roar and the race being back-to-back – that was a good move by IMSA. The field is super strong this year, and it’s clear that the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will continue to break records so there are so many positives right now with the extent of manufacturer involvement and the calibre of teams.”

Source material – Stoner Car Care

With the first ‘locally’ based racing events of the year now safely behind us, we can now look forward to the first nationally based series to get under way this season as the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship (and supporting series) hold their official Roar Before the 24 Test at the Daytona International Speedway this weekend which is again just one week ahead of the season opener at the Rolex 24.

2022 will also be a very notable year for the Championship as gone have the GTLM sportscar cars from the multi-class racing entry, only to be replaced with a more sustainable form of top flight and factory assisted racing with its new GTD Pro grid that will run alongside the usual GTD Class for the Pro-Am line-ups.

Not resting upon their laurels from their IMSA Sprint Cup Championship win last year with drivers Roman de Angelis and Ross Gunn, the Heart of Racing Team has already confirmed entries for each of their Aston Martin racing V8 Vantage GTD’s into full season campaigns in both the GTD Pro and GTD classes. Each car will also make use of the services of various AMR factory drivers along the way – not just at the Rolex 24 that will again feature as the opening round of the 2022 IMSA season but also throughout the season.

Amongst a confirmed GTD Pro entry of thirteen cars will see the Heart of Racing #27 car run with drivers Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas (full season) with Maxime Martin assisting during all rounds of the Endurance Cup (including the Rolex 24) whilst in GTD, the #23 car will run with an extended driver line up of Roman de Angelis, Tom Gamble, Ian James and Darren Turner before the car reverts back to just De Angelis and Martin for the Sprint Cup season.

Joining them at Daytona will also be the latest Aston Martin recruits as the Magnus Racing team convert to the AMR Vantage GTD platform for what has been indicated so far as an Endurance Cup only programme. Again running the usual Magnus crew of John Potter, Andy Lally with new recruit Spencer Pompelly, they will be joined at the Roar and the Rolex 24 with Le Mans winner and multiple British GT Champion Jonny Adam to help them along the way.

Having already tested at the Daytona circuit upon receipt of their new car in early December, the Roar will be a much-needed test platform and performance comparison for the team ahead of the actual season opener the following weekend.

Finally, but certainly by no means least we had the rather late confirmation of the attendance at the Roar and Rolex 24 of the #98 Northwest Racing AMR Vantage GTD with drivers Paul Dalla Lana, David Pittard, Charlie Eastwood and Nicki Thiim behind the wheel.

Serving as another precursor event ahead of the team’s World Endurance Championship commitments this season (that start after the next IMSA round at Sebring in early March), this is a driver line up marked with full intent to succeed.

All cars and drivers across the capacity 61 car Dpi / LMP2 / LMP3 / GTD Pro / GTD classes are of course mandated by IMSA Sporting Regulations to be present and indeed enter lap times at the Roar test, so in only a few days we will be getting out first glimpse of these beasts as teams jockey up in the later Qualifying Race on Sunday to determine the starting order for the Rolex 24 next weekend. 

Unfortunately however, it does appear that the Vantage GTD platform has been made much heavier that before with an expected 30kg addition to its declared BoP base weight going into this weekend.

Photo credits – CSJ Motorsport / F Lagunas / Teams

The new for 2022 Super GT New Zealand Series kicked off its opening meeting of their four round season this weekend from the picturesque Highlands Park Circuit on the South Island.

Competing amongst the confirmed twenty-seven car, multi-class grid were two Aston Martin Racing GT8R race cars from the Race Lab team with solo drivers Shane Helms and Steven Harrison behind the wheel of the #77 and #78 cars respectively.

Starting in the southern hemisphere’s mid-summer season, temperatures were just into their thirties as the team prepared for Free Practice and Qualifying before the first thirty-minute round on Saturday, another on Sunday morning before an hour long race to round things off later in the day.

Due to the grid make up of GT4, Porsche Cup and a few GT3 cars, the balance of performance between the classes was to be via each races compulsory visit to pit lane – not necessarily to change drivers as most cars were single drivers, but to recover time between the fastest and the slowest on track. The faster you were – the longer you sat in pit lane making for a sprint – enforced short break – sprint racing scenario.

All great in theory but unfortunately the nett result was probably not what the race organisers had first intended as Saturday’s first raced was scratched from the results after multiple incidents (thankfully non serious for the driver) lead to it not fulfilling its 75% race distance criteria for it to be called a result by the Stewards after it was red flagged due to an incident.

Sunday morning’s second half hour race did at least reach another un-natural conclusion after yet more multiple Safety Car required incidences blighted the racing with another distance shortened race. In that race, Harrison however was able to be listed as finishing P5 overall with Helms further back in P16.

Then again later on Sunday, the headline one hour race suffered something much the same after multiple Safety Car interventions and red flags soured and curtailed what should have been a great race. Whether that was all down to the characteristics of the circuit and/or drivers been slightly green from their elongated winter/COVID restricted break we might only find out when the series moves onto the Mike Pero Motorsport Park Circuit next weekend for another three races.

If nothing else, the two Aston’s looked great in the sunshine!!

Photo credits – Super GT NZ

Congratulations to the Heart of Racing team for today completing their first ever international event at the 24H Series annual visit to the Dubai Autodrome, only to finish second in class at the end of the 2022 Dubai 24hr.

Overcoming and learning from the disappointment from their first GT4 24hr race back home at Sebring late last year when a gearbox issue effectively ‘robbed’ them of a sure class podium finish, the American team went out to the Middle East with full determination to this time complete the job.

An early announcement from the French AGS Events Racing team today has them lined up for another four car, multi-class effort in this season’s FFSA GT4 Series.

Converting to the Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 in time for the 2020 season, this announcement sees all four of their GT4’s again meaningfully employed within their national GT4 series, this time split between two returning crews and two new driver line ups.

Today’s announcement confirms a Pro-Am entry for the #89 car of Team Principal Nicolas Gomar with new co-driver Loris Cabirou whilst the #007 will this year be driven by Ewen Hachez and Hugo Bac in Silver Cup.

Last season, the team’s #007 of Valentin Hasse-Clot and Romain Leroux of course secured the Silver Cup class and continued the teams string of Champion wins within the SRO series of either the FFSA GT4 and/or the GT4 European Series.

The two other cars will see another return of pairings Didier Dumaine/Christophe Carriere and Stephane Desbrosse/Lauris Nauroy in the AM Class.

Last season saw six AMR Vantage GT4’s entered into the FFSA GT4 Series but this season we are expecting numbers far beyond that.

The 2022 season again starts at Nogaro in three months time.

Photo credits – AGS Events

 

The two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 crews from both the PROsport Racing and Heart of Racing teams continued the theme set by the Century Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 at last weeks Gulf 12Hr at Yas Marina by claiming an exciting GT4 class front row lock out ahead of tomorrow’s start of the 24h Series Dubai 24.

With the series now also featuring a three driver combined Qualifying session, it was left to drivers Nico Verdonck, Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse to snatch the class position from the Heart of Racing team by just five thousandth of a second by the end of the third session.

Twenty-seven cars have been finally confirmed for the opening round of New Zealand’s new for 2022, the Rodin Cars Super GT Series that kicks off at Highlands Park this weekend.

Created in addition to the GT series that already compete individually on both their North and South Island, the Super GT Series has been designed not to interfere with either of the more established race programmes as like the Asian Le Mans Series, it will conclude at its fourth and final round at the end of February.

Featuring amongst the declared Porsche Cup Class and GT4 cars only grid will be two Aston Martin GT8R cars ran by the Race Lab team for drivers Shane Helms in his gold and black liveried #77 car and Steve Harrison in his familiar bright yellow #78 car each photographed an an early GT race this month.

Without further confirmation, these rounds are proposed to run two half hour races over the weekend plus one one-hour race later on the Sunday.

With the Dubai 24hr now not running a Vantage GT8R class at their event this weekend, New Zealand remains the only place where you can watch these enhanced GT4 race cars actively compete.

Photo credits - SGTNZ

The first officially scheduled sessions of the 2022 24H Series finally got underway today for all the teams at the Dubai Autodrome after some managed to get in some private testing beforehand at the circuit earlier in the week.

Over eighty cars are scheduled to compete within this year’s event with four Aston Martin Racing powered teams racing amongst them within the GT3 and GT4 classes.

German based PROsport Racing were amongst the first at the circuit and were able to carry out some post freight shakedown testing as Nico Verdonck clocked in some laps in both their Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars on Monday whilst the remaining Dual Racing with TF Sport and Heart of Racing teams had to wait until today before their respective driver line ups were available at the circuit.

With that, TF Sport had to sadly report today changes in both line up and class today as Sam De Haan has been forced to remain at home due to COVID restrictions so his place within their #95 AMR Vantage GT3 will now be taken by Ahmad Al Harty. Also dropping down from the Pro-Am GT3 class to the GT3 Am Class means that Charlie Eastwood can no longer participate with the team alongside Ramzi, Nabil and Sami Moutran.

Whilst very unfortunate for both De Haan and Eastwood, the lure of the Asian Le Mans Series with the team just a month after the Dubai 24hr remains at their forefront of their minds and at least provides Al Harthy with some unscheduled seat time before that four round series.

Having ventured to the Middle East for what will be their first international racing venture has the US based Heart of Racing team travel out for their second excursion within the 24H Series after their disappointment at the Sebring round late last season when gearbox issues robbed Gray Newell, Ian James, Alex Riberas and Roman de Angelis of a near certain GT4 class podium.

This will be a busy three weeks for the team as straight after Dubai, the team will need to rush back Stateside for the Roar before the 24 next weekend and then the Rolex 24 the week after in their IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship commitmments.

Completing the four car AMR entry are the two PROsport Racing cars, one racing in GT3 Am and the other in GT4 with a sizeable driver line up of nine drivers between them. Whilst the GT4 line up of Rodrique Gillion, Nico Verdonck, Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse have lots of GT4 racing experience between them (and have to be a favoured car within the class), the GT3 line up of Maxime Dumarey, Guillaume Dumarey, Jean Glorieux and Simon Balcaen have less and especially so in a current GT3 platform.

Tomorrow will feature further Practice sessions before Qualifying ahead of the start of the 24-hour race on Friday.

Photo credits – 24H Series / Teams

As things stand now with little over a day remaining before the closing of the entry window and then just a further nine days before the start of track activity at the official test for the opening round of the 2022 IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship and supporting Michelin Pilot Challenge, we wait with bated breath to see just how many Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD’s and GT4’s will be entered this season.

Again this year, the Roar before the 24 test weekend lays just one week ahead of the start of official proceedings for the opening rounds of the IMSA season with the Qualifying race at the Roar also setting the grid for the start of the Rolex 24 within the Weathertech Sportscar Championship. For IMSA, this year will have seen the demise of the GTLM Class in favour of the more sustainable GTD Pro class which will again fit in between the protype classes and the GTD class for Pro-Am squads.

What we know already is that we do expect to see at least three Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTD’s at Daytona International Speedway for next weekend and the weekend after – one from the nearly converted Magnus Racing Team competing within the endurance rounds only so far (with the Rolex 24 is also the opening round of that Championship) within the GTD class and also with a pair of Aston’s from the Heart of Racing team as they not only defend their Sprint Cup crown in GTD but also step up to the new GTD Pro class with a whole new team of drivers as well.

Roman de Angelis rides again with the team, this time in the #27 car alongside co-drivers (for Daytona) in Tom Gamble, Darren Turner and Ian James whilst their #27 Pro class car will be driven by Ross Gunn, Alex Riberas and Maxime Martin, all very familiar names but not necessarily in the same sentence before!

At Daytona we will also have the opening round of the supporting Michelin Pilot Challenge Series – a series that was somewhat electrified by the competitive battles from and between both the Volt Racing and Notlad Racing AMR Vantage GT4 teams as well as a part season appearance from the locally based Automatic Racing team.

Sadly for us, both Pat Gallagher and Stevan McAleer have both (and rightly for them) found GT3 seats for the season so their always brightly liveried Notlad Aston will not be visible on track at least not at a national level for another season whilst owner Matt Dalton continues with his post-accident rehabilitation with only local/State sanctioned events possible for them this year.

Whilst there has been no officially confirmation of this, we do expect Alan Brynjolfsson to return with his Volt Racing AMR – a car that he shared last year with Trent Hindman along with up to possibly two Aston’s from the Automatic Racing competing again under the name of Stoner Car Care.

Traditionally, entries into these IMSA Championships are not officially confirmed until much closer to the start of the Roar before the 24 test and then you still have potential complications caused again by COVID with international transport. Then again, there is always the potential for entries in addition to those stated (and we do await the confirmation of the Northwest AMR Vantage in GTD) and that would make for a pleasant surprise!!

All these teams stated, together with whoever else turns up in Florida next week sporting an AMR badged car will be serviced by those at CSJ Motorsport!

Photo credits – HoRT / CSJ Motorsport / MPC / F Lagunas