Turner: 'AMR-One just a blip'
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Speaking at Autosport International on Friday, Aston Martin Racing’s Darren Tuner gave an insight in to their 2012 program and the troubled season with the AMR-One.
"The program at the moment is the WEC, and hopefully a Le Mans entry," said Turner. "We've done a little bit of testing, and then it's just a case of getting our heads down and making sure we are competitive.”
"There's also talk of continuing in GT1, but AMR will dictate what I do and everyone is waiting to see what happens with the championship. It's been very strong in the last two years and we came away second in the championship last year, so hopefully it continues that way."
“Obviously Le Mans last year wasn’t fantastic with the AMR-One, it was a very bold attempt to try and get on terms with the diesel, and maybe with a bit more time and funding it could have got there” he said."It was basically early in its development; most big teams have the opportunity to do testing for a year behind closed doors, while still racing a previous model. We had to do everything in public, and that was effectively the problem - it was a test programme that everyone got to see.
"It's definitely a David vs Goliath situation over the years though Aston Martin has always punched well above their weight. If you think about the Lola-Aston Martin that we ran in 2009 and 2010 it was the fastest petrol car and very competitive and it had a lot of good results”
"The AMR-One was a new car in every way, and we just needed some time to go testing. If you look at everything that has been achieved since its formation in 2004, overall [Aston Martin Racing] has been a fantastic and successful programme, with just one blip."
Aston Martin Racing are expected to field a heavily updated Vantage GTE in the WEC and some selected ALMS rounds in 2012.