"Danish Dynamite“ is back for it’s second season in the FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC): Young Driver AMR and Aston Martin Racing will again join forces in the global sports car championship. Aston Martin Racing will enter the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin Vantage GTE in all eight rounds of the championship in the GTE-Am-class. Beside three very familiar faces in the driver’s seat of the V8-powered Aston Martin, there will be a new driver joining the team. Fellow Dane David Heinemeier Hansson will strengthen the all-Danish driver line up of Kristian Poulsen, Nicki Thiim and Christoffer Nygaard. Heinemeier Hansson joins Young Driver AMR after a successful season in the LMP2 class of the FIA WEC, which he finished as runner up in the championship.

David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen will share driving duties in the #95 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin Vantage in all eight rounds. Nicki Thiim, who isn’t available for all rounds due to other commitments, is currently scheduled to race in the season opener at Silverstone and the 24h of Le Mans.

Almost 50 days before the FIA WEC opening round on the Easter weekend at Silverstone in England, preparations for the season are already in full swing with Young Driver AMR. In recent months, the #95 Aston Martin Vantage GTE has been upgraded to the latest technical spec with Aston Martin Racing in England and will race in the identical spec as the Aston Martin entries in the Pro-category for full factory cars. After the extensive upgrade, Young Driver AMR just completed a successful two-day pre season test with Aston Martin Racing in Portimão/Portugal. The next stop for Young Driver AMR will be the official pre season test of the FIA WEC, held on 28th and 29th March at the HTTT Paul Ricard in Le Castellet in the south of France. The season will then start over the Easter weekend at Silverstone, where Young Driver AMR claimed a class victory on it’s debut in the World Championship twelve month ago.

"Danish Dynamite is back the FIA WEC with a very strong driver line up“, Jan Struve of Young Driver AMR says. "I’m happy that we will continue with our proven and fast driver line-up of Kristian, Nicki and Christoffer and have a great addition in David. He proved his speed in the past two seasons in prototype cars and is a perfect fit for the team. Young Driver AMR claimed six pole positions and three class victories in the previous season and was arguably the quickest team in the GTE-Am-class. We want to carry this momentum to the 2014 season and are really excited for the start of the season.“

Image - Richard Leach

Aston Martin is running its largest motorsport programme to-date this year as it enters the most challenging and demanding endurance races in the world with a full range of Vantage-based race cars.

2014 marks ten years of Aston Martin Racing - the luxury sportcar maker’s most extensive motorsport campaign in its 101-year history - and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will once again be the highlight of the calendar, as the team fields four V8 Vantage GTEs in the full season, and as many as seven cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

This campaign will be complimented by some of the toughest endurance races in the world; Nürburgring 24 Hours (N24) and Spa 24 Hours in the V12 Vantage GT3.

The success of the Vantage GT3, launched at the start of 2012, has encouraged Aston Martin to increase its factory team’s focus on GT3 racing. Now in its third year of a five-year plan to win the ADAC Nürburgring 24, the works team will once again field its Bilstein-liveried Vantage GT3. The V12 charger will be piloted by long-standing works drivers Darren Turner (GB) and Stefan Mücke (DE), who will be joined by five-times N24-winner Pedro Lamy (PT).

David King, Head of Motorsport at Aston Martin comments: “We are ramping up our focus on our GT3 activities as this enables us to compete for outright victory in some of the world’s toughest endurance races, such as N24, but the WEC campaign with the V8-powered Vantage GTE will once again be the backbone of our motorsport activity in 2014.”

Returning to make a full-season assault on the WEC, after narrowly missing out on the world championship title in 2013, is the #97 Gulf-liveried Vantage GTE of Turner and Mücke. Having been with Aston Martin Racing since its inception in 2004, Turner joins the team in celebrating the tenth anniversary.

The second of the two GTE-Pro cars, the #99 Bamboo Engineering Vantage GTE, will be piloted by Aston Martin Racing’s newest signings, 2012 WEC GTE-AM World Champion Fernando Rees (BR), WTCC driver Alex MacDowall (GB) and Craft Racing AMR’s Darryl O’Young (HK), who all tested the car at the official Aston Martin Racing test session in Portimao last week.

“The test went really well in Portimao, and we have another test planned soon,” said Rees. “The team is working really hard and I am really happy to continue in the WEC and be part of the Aston Martin Racing family.”

In the third WEC entry, the all-Danish #95 Young Driver car, David Heinemeier-Hansson will join last year’s drivers Kristian Poulsen, Christoffer Nygaard and Nicki Thiim, who will compete at selected rounds due to clashes with other commitments.  Also in the GTE-Am class, a fourth Vantage GTE will compete, with the team driving alongside experienced Canadian Paul Dalla Lana to be confirmed at a later date.

The drivers for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the fourth round of the WEC and the highest profile endurance race in the world, will also be confirmed nearer the time, but the team has announced that Bruno Senna (BR) will make his return following a successful race in 2013.

 “This year marks the tenth anniversary for Aston Martin Racing and we can celebrate a

decade of modern sportscar racing with our largest campaign yet,” said John Gaw, Team Principal at Aston Martin Racing.

The team also plans to enter a V12 Vantage GT3 in the Silverstone round of the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES) as well as having a works team entry in the championship’s toughest endurance round, Spa 24 Hours.

“Our GT3 has been extremely successful,” comments Gaw. “We launched it back in early 2012 as a well-developed machine and this allowed customer teams to win races from the off-set and meant that they were spared costly upgrades at the end of the year. Last year, the GT3’s performance in the Asian Le Mans Series granted Craft Racing a 24 Hours of Le Mans entry and it won the British GT Championship with Beechdean AMR. It also led N24 for 13 hours and set pole at Spa 24 Hours. We hope to build on this success in 2014.”

Increased support will also be offered to GT3 customers competing in the British GT Championship, including last year’s winners Beechdean AMR; championship contenders MP Motorsport; new partner team TF Sport, which will increase its entry from one car to two; and Motorbase Performance, which will enter a pair of new GT3s. Aston Martin Racing will also assist Beechdean AMR’s title challenge for the GT4 class with its new V8-powered Vantage GT4 – the 100th off the production line.

Further adding to the Aston Martin presence at British GT Championship rounds, the popular GT4 challenge, now in its fourth year, becomes a support race to the Britain’s premier GT championship. Not only that, but the enduring popularity of the Vantage GT4 is further underlined by the launch of a GT4 Challenge in North America with the support of TRG-AMR.

With Aston Martin Racing’s official announcement due tomorrow morning the pieces of what looks to be a very impressive program are starting to fall into place.

What do we know? Well AMR’s long serving factory drivers, Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke will return in the teams Pro Cars with Bruno Senna joining the team for Le Mans at least. In the AM class we’ll see Kristian Poulsen, Paul Dalla Lana and Richie Stanaway joined by David Heinemeier Hansson; however with four cars entered into the WEC and no fewer than six works cars entered for Le Mans AMR still has a lot of seats to fill.


There’s also been a distinct Touring Car feel to Aston Martin Racing's recent test sessions with Tom Onslow-Cole gaining further experience in the teams cars with Andrew Jordan, Stephen Jelley and Bamboo Racing’s Alex MacDowall all taking the chance to sample AMR’s various GT cars, It’s possible we may see one or more of these in a Vantage GTE during the year.

Joining AMR at Le Mans this year will be Craft Racing, the team securing their entry via their success the Asian Le Mans Series. Frank Yu is the named driver who is expected to be joined by regular team mate, Darryl O'Young. Its here that we believe the rumoured Bamboo Racing involvement to materialise, with the ex WTCC team supporting Craft in Europe and possibly running one of AMR’s WEC cars.

For now however well just have to wait until tomorrow for what looks to be a very impressive 2014 season for AMR

Image - Richard Leach

Well, what a difference a day makes!

There I was counting the number of cars on my fingers as and when reports came up on Twitter and low and behold it wasn't very long before things just didn't add up to our previous report. An incredible 16 Aston Martin Vantages were actually making their presence felt at the Portimao circuit.

As it turned out, three of the works V8 Vantage GTE's made the trip - namely the #97 and #99 Pro cars and the #95 Young Driver Am car. AMR reported that all the 2014 cars were tested for a gruelling 25 hours and over a day and night format by many of their prospective drivers ahead of the 2014 WEC season that kicks off at Silverstone in April.

A further GTE car for Strata 21 boss Paul White reunited again with Tom Onslow-Cole and Javier Morcillo also tested.



British GT was the next series of choice fielding a whopping 8 cars across the GT3 and GT4 field. Motorbase and TF Sport tested both of their new GT3's whilst further single cars from MP-AMR,  PGF-Kinfaun and finally (but no means least) the GT3 from Beechdean, not forgetting their new GT4 steed. The final GT3 car being tested was the Bilstein liveried car from the ADAC Nurburgring 24hr.

Beechdean GT4 debutants Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings both reported how different the Vantage was in comparison to their previous front wheel drive cars but both looked forward with eager anticipation to further pre season testing and to their new season together in British GT.



Photo Credits - Aston Martin Racing

Over the last couple of days Aston Martin Racing and some of their Customer Teams have had themselves their very own 'convoy' with seven transporter lorries carrying 10 cars travelling all the way down to the Portimao circuit in Portugal - a journey of nearly 2,500km for a collective winter test.

GTE cars known to have made the long journey include the #97 car of Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke and the #99 Valero sponsored Bruno Senna car.

On top the 'works' cars you can add the Beechdean GT3 of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam together with their brand new GT4 car for Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings, the two new Motorbase GT3's (no drivers currently published), one  GT3 car for the renamed MP-AMR squad of Mark Poole and Richard Abra, a single car for Paul White of Strata21, the Bilstein sponsored GT3 from N24 and a further V8 GT4.



Besides the names listed above additional drivers known to have made the trip include ex JRM LMP1 driver Karun Chandock, AMR Pro/AM stalwart Stuart Hall, members of the BTCC fraternity including Tom Onslow-Cole and reigning champion Andrew Jordan and WTCC driver Alex McDowall (amongst others). All in all that is quite a pool of motor racing knowledge and experience.

Tom Onslow-Cole is there for yet more AMR experience following on from what he had testing at Snetterton and race at Brands Hatch last year and this year it seems that it is the turn of the reigning BTCC Champion Andrew Jordan to be given a coveted AMR invite to test the Beechdean Vantage.



WTCC driver Alex McDowall also makes a return visit to the AMR paddock following a successful shakedown test with the Beechdean team at Snetterton last year prior to the teams Blancpain Endurance Series campaign.



The two day test is due to conclude on Saturday and it will be interesting to see if any further drivers make the trip as both Motorbase cars are both driverless despite being officially entered into the British GT Championship that kicks off at Oulton Park on Easter weekend. It is understood that at least one pair are due to test again in the UK early next week.



At stage it is unlikely that any data will be released by the team as the test is only being used for both shakedown and familiarisation purposes together with a degree of corporate media activity to boot.

For anyone living close to the circuit public access will not be permitted for this private test but @AMR_Official shall be updating the situation over the Friday and Saturday test.

Photo credit - AMR

Aston Martin Racing were today confirmed in both the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 hours at the ACO's traditional presentation conference.

Having finished second in the GTE Pro championship last year and securing the GTE AM Drivers championship, AMR will return with two cars in both Pro and AM with additional cars entered in each class for Le Mans where they'll also be joined by Craft Racing.

The full team line up will be announced February 28th.

Image Richard Leach

Craft Racing were today confirmed for the 2014 Le Mans 24 hours, having secured their entry from their success in the Asian Le Mans Series. The team will head to Le Mans with a Vantage GTE, hopefully in their meaning grean and black livery.

“This is a dream come true as our Hong Kong team will be heading to Le Mans." Said team founder Frank Yu "This is a big step for Craft Racing, as we made Le Mans our target from the outset and to achieve this result is a great reward to everyone on the team for all the hard work.  We will all enjoy this special moment right now, but work will start again immediately as we prepare for a big race in January at the 24 hours of Dubai and preparations for Le Mans.”

Team Principle, Mark Goddard added, “It is a tremendous day for us, as getting a Le Mans invitation is one of the biggest challenges for a race team. Scoring an early invitation allows us time to prepare properly for the race in June and we can begin organising the logistics, sponsors and the driver line-ups for the race. It will be a big challenge ahead but we have worked hard for many years to achieve this and we are ready for the task. Many thanks to all our sponsors and supporters for believing in us, and a special thank you to Aston Martin Racing for all the continued support.”

Ahead of today’s official announcement by the ACO of entrants for the European Le Mans Series, Gulf Racing confirmed their return to the European Le Mans Series with an Aston Martin Vantage GTE and Porsche 911.

Team Co-owner Roald Goethe who car narrowly missed the GT-AM championship title last year in the WEC  said “I’m really excited to be back racing with my guys in the ELMS, with the Aston having the latest upgrade package I’m sure we will be in contention in what I think will be a very competitive Championship this year.”

Team Manager Matt Beers added “It really does promise to be a great season in the ELMS, it is always challenging to run two different marques in one garage but we have a team that is capable and I’m sure it will be of great interest to see the differences in the cars on level ground.”

The European Le Mans Series gets underway at Silverstone April 18th

Image Richard Leach

Tonight David Heinemeier Hannson is reporting on this own website and Twitter feed that a deal has been struck for him to join the Young Driver AMR GTE-AM team for the 2014 WEC season including the Le Mans 24HR.

As yet no official confirmation from either Aston Martin Racing or Young Driver has been posted.