Young Driver AMR head to the Nürburgring

The first milestone in the 2012 season has been archived: Young Driver AMR took its first ADAC GT Masters victory of the season with the new Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 driven by Kristian Poulsen/Christoffer Nygaard at the Sachsenring in early June. Kristian Poulsen rounded off a strong weekend with a double victory in the amateur championship and took over the amateur-championship lead. The next race weekend (13th to 15th July) as part of the Truck Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, which draws each year a crowd of more then 200.000 spectators, will be a very serious task for the Danish duo Poulsen/Nygaard and the Stuck brothers Johannes and Ferdinand, who share the second Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 entered by Young Driver in the highly competitive German GT-series.

"We have some really good memories to the Nürburgring, as we took a double victory there in 2010 in the FIA GT1 World Championship," says Young Driver team principal Hardy Fischer. "This coming weekend will be a difficult one, as we are racing on the sprint track version of the Nürburgring, which lacks fast and flowing corners, where our Aston Martin can play its strength. I hope that our two Danes will be able to maintain their excellent third place in the driver’s championship with some decent points in both races and hope the Stuck brothers will have a successful weekend too, after so much bad luck recently."

Poulsen and Nygaard will have to cope with a handicap this weekend. After their victory at the Sachsenring, they will have to carry 30kg success ballast onboard their V12-powered Aston Martin.

The Nürburgring race marks the end of the first half of the 2012 ADAC GT masters season. Before the round in the Eifel mountains, Young Driver AMR is third in the team’s championship while Poulsen/Nygaard are third in driver’s standings.

Johannes Stuck: "he Nürburgring is one of my favourite tracks, so I'm really looking forward to the two races this weekend at the Truck Grand Prix. I hope that we can score points in both races. The qualifying will be crucial this weekend, as in previous races this was a little bit our weak point, and with the sprint track being very short, starting position is very important. My wish for the weekend is that we start into both races from the first five rows and score as many points as possible. And actually, we should mount some larger rear mirrors on the car, that we can spot the cars, that attack us. In previous races we got hit several times by competitors and lost many points, so I hope we will have more luck this weekend. Aston Martin Racing has also collected further experience with the new V12 Vantage GT3 in recent weeks, which also should help us at the Nürburgring."

Christoffer Nygaard: "Surely the Nürburgring is not one of my most favourite tracks, but it’s gets and better each time. The success weight, which we have to carry this weekend, will surely not help us. The Aston Martin V12 Vantage scored it’s first ever win at the Nürburgring back in may, but on the long Grand-Prix-track and this weekend, we will be on the short track, which suits the car not so well. The track is also new ground for my teammate Kristian Poulsen. So it certainly will be a tough weekend and we will have some work to do. But racing with the trucks at the Nürburgring will provide a incredible weekend."