Young Driver AMR targets top of championship

Three weeks after the brilliant weekend for Young Driver AMR at the Nürburgring, where the German team took the Pole Position as well as victories in the Qualifying and also in the Championship Race, the FIA GT1 World Championship is set for the next round. The seventh round of the GT1 World Championship will take place this weekend at Portimão on the Algarve coast. After the first victory for Young Driver AMR in the last round, Darren Turner (GB) und Tomas Enge (CZ) are currently third in the championship in the #7 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 and want to improve their position in the championship hunt. Stefan Mücke (D) will have a new teammate in the #8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 at the Portuguese round as Christoffer Nygaard (DK) will miss the Portuguese round due to family commitments, former Formula 1 driver and sportscar ace Pedro Lamy will jump in for Nygaard.

The trip to Portugal is the longest on-road journey for Young Driver AMR in this year´s championship. At 3000km the distance between the team base in Paderborn and the track near to Faro is the longest tour of the season for the Young Driver AMR truckies. The trucks with the two Aston Martin DBR9 left the team base last Saturday to make sure the cars arrived in time in Portugal and to make the long journey worthwhile for the team, Turner/Enge want to close the gap to the championship leader at Portimão. But as a result of the victory in the last round, they will have to race with an extra 40kg “success ballast” at the scenic Portimão track which has lots of elevation changes, situated in the backcountry of the Algarve coast.

The #8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9 starts with a new driver line up in Portugal. Christoffer Nygaard will miss the Portuguese round for family commitments. “Christoffer asked us to skip the next round and of course we accepted his request“, Young Driver AMR boss Hardy Fischer explains. “We are very sorry that Christoffer can’t be with us this weekend and we really hope he will be back for the next round.“ Sportscar-ace Pedro Lamy, a former factory driver of Aston Martin Racing, will step in for Nygaard. The 38-year old Portuguese will start on home ground in his first GT1 World Championship race, but he has already driven the Aston Martin DBR9 in more than 20 races. „Pedro Lamy is incredible experienced in all kinds of sportscars and being a Portuguese, he also knows the track“, says Hardy Fischer.

In the seventh round of the GT1-World Championship, Young Driver AMR will not only fight for honours in the drivers championship, but also for second place in the team championship. The German team is currently third in team standings, only four points behind the second placed team.

Driver quotes:

Stefan Mücke (#8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9): “I don’t know the track in a GT-car, this will be a new experience for me. But I raced there last year in an LMP1-car, so I know what to expect. The most important thing at Portimão will be to have a good tire strategy, because the track is very aggressive on tires. The track is very angular, the straights are very short. That stresses the tires really hard, you have to look really careful after your tires.“

Tomas Enge (#7 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9): “Portimão will be quite interesting for us. After the victory at the Nürburgring we have 40 kilos success ballast in the car. With the additional weight, I don’t think we will run at the front in Portugal. But you never know what happens during the races. The most important thing of the weekend is the Championship Race, and as we saw in the last races, many things can happen until that. So you have to be focused on the Championship Race, that is what counts. The track itself is not one of my favourite circuits, but the track has a nice topography and some very interesting elevation changes.“

Darren Turner (#7 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9): „I really like the track, for a new built track it has a enormous character, it’s fun to race there. We will have to carry 40 kilos success ballast around that track, but this always reminds you were not too bad in the last race. It’s not so bad that we have the extra kilos in our car at Portimão, because I think it’s not an Aston Martin-track and we also expect the temperatures to be very warm. So it’s better to have the kilos onboard there, then at any other track.“