Young Driver AMR: Nurburgring GT1 Preview

Young Driver AMR will race on home turf this weekend and after a promising performance in the previous round at Spa, the Young Driver squad - Stefan Mucke and Christoffer Nygaard (No.8) and Darren Turner and Tomas Enge (No.7) are eager for the challenge of the Nurburgring.

The German circuit is a happy hunting ground for the team as Mucke and Enge won the 1,000km race last year in an Aston Martin Le Mans prototype, and Turner has also been successful at the 'Ring in the past including a class win in a Aston Martin DBR9 in 2005.

Young Driver AMR will also benefit from a reduction in Balance of Performance ballast with 20kg of the extra weight been removed since the Spa round a month ago.

Here's what the Young Driver AMR team drivers had to say about this weekend ...

Tomas Enge, Aston Martin No.7

“Obviously I would prefer to race at the Nordschleife, but OK we are racing at the Grand Prix track. I like the track, it offers fast and flowing corners. With the exception of the Mercedes Arena, as it’s too slow and too slippery.

"We are also allowed to start with 20kg less weight at the Nurburgring which should really help our performance. We will fight for a good place, it´s the home race of our team and a really special event for the entire crew. I hope that lots of the German fans will support us and hope we can score many points."

Darren Turner, Aston Martin No.7

“The last races showed that we needed a weight deduction, it was notable that we were not able to race evenly with the other brands at the front. The track should suit us well, Aston Martin had good success with the DBR9 at the Nurburgring in the past.

"I like to race there and have some good memories, in 2005 I took the very first class victory with the Aston Martin DBR9 in the Le Mans Series at the 'Ring. You have to drive really clean here and make no mistakes. Because with the special layout of the track, every mistake will cost you a lot of time.”

Stefan Mucke, Aston Martin No.8

“I like the Nurburgring very much and I hope we can at least be on the podium there. We had a test last week in Brno, which went pretty well and I hope we can transform what we learned there into a quick car at the Nurburgring.

"Due to the tyre rules in the championship, it’s almost impossible to test some things during a race weekend. So the test really helped a lot to sort some things out and be better prepared for the second half of the season.”

Christoffer Nygaard, Aston Martin No.8

"Nurburgring is not one of my favourite tracks. I really don’t know why, but I always got some mixed emotions there. I raced there in the Polo and Seat Cup and also with the Ford GT in the ADAC GT Masters, but I didn’t get familiar with the track so far.

"Stefan (Mucke) is very experienced at the 'Ring and I hope he will show me some tricks. We had a strong pace at Spa and scored our best result of the season in the Qualifying Race there. So I hope we will also be strong in Germany. But the most important thing is to finish the race without troubles. If we manage that, I´m sure we will finish in a good position.“