Young Driver AMR: Preparing for Le Mans at Spa 1000km

Final rehearsal for Le Mans at the 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps

The Young Driver AMR team as no time to rest in these days. After the first European race of the GT1 World Championship last weekend, the teams travels to Belgium, as Young Drivers AMR enters one Aston Martin DBR9 in the legendary 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps. The race on the epic, 7 km long track in the Ardennes is the final rehearsal for the 24h of Le Mans, in which Young Driver AMR will start this year for the first time and as sole Aston Martin GT1-team. Stefan Mücke (D), Tomas Enge (CZ) and Christoffer Nygaard (DK) will share driving duties in the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 at Spa.

“Spa will give us a good training before our first Le Mans 24 hours assault,” team boss Hardy Fischer says. “After the GT1 race in Silverstone we stayed in England, and prepared the DBR9 that will race in Spa in the facilities of Aston Martin Racing in Banbury. From England, we will travel directly to Belgium. Our mechanics did a tremendous job in the last couple of weeks. After our first race at Abu Dhabi, they prepared two great cars for Silverstone in a very limited time, and now they have a really busy time to prepare the car for Spa.”
Since it’s first race at the 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps back in 2006, the Aston Martin DBR9 has not yet won the GT1 class at the mighty Belgium track. One issue that Young Driver AMR-drivers Mücke, Enge and Nygaard aim to change in Sunday’s 1000km race.

“Spa will be the first time that we will meet all of our competitors, who will also race against us at Le Mans”, Tomas Enge says. “It will be a different kind of race for us, as our main goal at Spa will be collecting experience for Le Mans. After Spa we will have a good idea about our speed and of course, about our competitors.”
“I’m really happy to drive at Spa, it’s quite some time since I drove on this legendary track last time”, Christoffer Nygaard says. “It’s a good preparation for Le Mans and a good training for me. For the first time this year I will have the chance to drive a little bit longer in the car. Due to the expected 50 cars, there will be a lot of traffic, and it’s important for me to learn how to drive in the traffic. Also the fight with the GT2 cars will quite interesting, as we expect the fastest GT2 cars to me only marginally slower then our GT1-machines.”

Third driver for Young Driver AMR at the 24h of Le Mans will Peter Kox. But as the highly experienced Dutchman is on duty in the German GT3-Series this weekend, reigning Le Mans Series-LMP1-Champion Stefan Mücke will fill his role. Mücke celebrated already a first success in this year’s Le Mans Series, when he came second in a Aston Martin prototype car at the season opener, the 8h of Le Castellet three weeks ago. “Spa is a great track and really love to race there. It will be a really interesting race there.”

Schedule Le Mans Series 1000km of Spa Francorchamps:
Friday, 07. May
12.05 – 13.05 Free practise 1
16.25 – 17.25 Free practise 2

Saturday, 08. May
09.45 – 10.45 Free practise 3
13.50 – 14.10 Qualifying GT1 & GT2

Sunday, 09. May
09.00 – 09.20 Warm-Up
11.30 – 18.30 RACE (143 laps or six hours, whatever will come first)

Le Mans Series on TV:
EUROSPORT – Sunday, 09. May:
11.15 – 12.00 Start of the race (LIVE)
14.15 – 15.15 Race (LIVE)
17.30 – 18.00 End of the race