^{Aston Martin will join defending champions Ferrari, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Porsche, McLaren, Bentley and Lamborghini in the battle for outright honours n}

It may be out of season but that certainly doesn't mean that teams and drivers can seek a warm corner of the workshop in which to hibernate. For one such British GT team this week has seen them firmly entrenched within the paddock apron at the Snetterton circuit in Norfolk.

Tom Ferrier's TF Sport started the week with former 888 driver Derek Johnston trying the car for size on Tuesday followed by this years British GT4 Champion Jake Giddings testing it yesterday. Today saw Radical driver and Sunoco Challenge winner Lewis Plato share the car with an as yet unidentified second driver.






Sure all the tests will simply be exploratory tests prior to making final decisions in the early stages of next year once finances have been determined.

Photo credits - Richard Leach

The two Craft-Bamboo Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3's are getting a full makeover for the Macau GT Cup. The normal green, white and black livery (above) on both the #55 Darryl O'Young and the #97 of Frank Yu cars are just a little different!

The Macau Grand Prix event starts 13th November.

The 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship enters its final stage and this weekends 6 hours of Shanghai in China mark the start of a very busy November. Three races in November in China, Bahrain and Brazil will decide the championship and Young Driver AMR is a very good position. The Aston Martin Racing entered Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin Vantage GTE is leading the GTE-Am class teams championship, while Kristian Poulsen und David Heinemeier Hansson are not only points leader in the GTE Am drivers championship, but are also the highest placed Aston Martin drivers in the World Endurance Cup for GT drivers. The „Danish Express“ is strengthened in China by rapid New Zealander Richie Stanaway, as Young Driver AMR regular Nicki Thiim is on Porsche Supercup duty. Stanaway will race for the third time this season for Young Driver AMR after the Spa and Austin rounds of the FIA WEC.
 
Young Driver AMR aims for another good result in China, to get closer to the ultimate goal, the win of the World Championship. Last year Young Driver AMR took the class Pole Position at the 5,4 km long and technically challenging Formula 1 track in China and dominated the race, but came short of a finish.
 
„It is looking very promising at the moment, as we have clear lead in the championship and have been very quick at Shanghai last year, but we still have to be very careful“, Young Driver AMR´s Jan Struve says. „After the two most recent rounds at Austin and Fuji I expect the biggest competition in China from our Aston Martin Racing sister car, they gave us a hard time during the last two rounds. We have to stay focused for the remaining three round and have to work on every detail, as we have still 18 hours of racing ahead of us.”
 
Poulsen is optimistic to finish on the podium for the sixth consecutive time this season: „This weekend, two of the regular competitors in our class are missing, so in terms of our championship ambitions, this is not too bad. It would be nice to finish another race of the podium, but this is not the main goal. At this stage of the championship, we have to score points. We have to finish the race, this is the most important thing this weekend.”
 
David Heinemeier Hansson knows the Shanghai International Circuit from the seat of a Le Mans prototype and has yet to turn his first laps in a GT car: “Shanghai is a fun track that's a real challenge to learn and drive fast. I haven't driven it in a GT car yet, so adjusting from the LMP lines and break points will be the first objective.“
 
Heinemeier Hansson has a clear vision how to approach the Chinese round of the WEC: „We are in a very fortunate position in the championship, where the key really just is to make it to the finish line. We take absolutely no risk. But that doesn't mean we are not going to be pushing for another win. With fewer cars on track, and such a long track, it's a lot easier to drive fast without risking the car in traffic. We are not going to Shanghai just to cruise around on a sight-seeing drive.”
 
Eurosport will broadcast the final 90 minutes of the six-hour race live on Sunday morning starting 08:30 hours. The entire race will be streamed online live on the series websitewww.fiawec.com starting Sunday at 04:00 hours (paid content).
 
Standing FIA Endurance Trophy for GTE Am drivers:
1. Poulsen/Heinemeier Hansson (Young Driver AMR), 136 points
2. Thiim (Young Driver AMR), 100
3. Nygaard/Dalla Lana/Lamy, (Aston Martin Racing), 97
4. Ried/Al Qubaisi/Bachler (Proton Competition), 87
5. Perez-Companc/Cioci/Venturi (AF Corse), 76
 
Standing FIA Endurance Trophy for GTE Am Teams:
1. Young Driver AMR (Aston Martin Vantage GTE), 136 points
2. Aston Martin Racing (Aston Martin Vantage GTE), 97
3. Proton Competition (Porsche 911 RSR), 87
4. AF Corse (Ferrari 458 Italia), 86
5. 8Star Motorsports (Ferrari 458 Italia), 40

Source - Young Driver AMR

Judging by the activities on social media today three young British racing drivers received a taste of things possibly to come in their driving careers when they tested both an Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 and a V8 Vantage GT4 at Donington today.

Jamie Chadwick has been racing in the Ginetta Juniors in 2014 whilst her older brother Ollie Chadwick has been progressed to the Ginetta GT5 Challenge with Andrew Watson finishing his season in fourth position in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup. All series are run under the TOCA package.

The link to all of these young guns is that they are all mentored by Beechdean Motorsport and Aston Martin Racing's Jonny Adam.

Whether these tests are representative of a genuine upward progression in their respective motor racing careers or were just part of a 'reward' package is unclear, however it is for sure that they thoroughly enjoyed their drives today.

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Aston

Last weekend saw Aston Martin Racing enter the Beechdean AMR V12 Vantage GT3 into other side of the Blancpain GT Series to what they are normal accustom by entering the Blancpain GT Sprint Series at its penultimate event at the historic Zolder circuit in Belgium.

Accompanying regular driver Jonny Adam was no other than former F2 champion Andy Soucek who came to the team with previous winning Blancpain Endurance Series experience in one of the ART McLaren MP4-12C's. To date though Soucek had never driven an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 so was surely a bit of a 'wild card'?

Going into Free Practice 1 and 2 you would have never had thought that that was the case with the #107 car featuring in P2 and P3 at the end of each respective session only behind the series front running Bhaitech McLaren's and Belgium Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8's. Even going into Q1, and with Soucek having completed his stint, the #107 sat in provisional pole position but with Adam not finding good pace and rhythm (and with the top of the field progressing to beat Soucek's Q1 time) the Beechdean car finished qualifying down in P14 and would not progress into Q3.


Come the rolling start to commence the one hour sprint that would be the Qualifying race a wise Jonny Adam held back a little from his P14 start position to take into consideration the chaos that would be the opening lap and to that end would move up four places by the end of the lap. Later into his stint Adam would have a good scrap with the BWW Z4's of ROAL Motorsport and Team Brazil. Just before the half hour mark and with a Safety Car out on track Adam followed the top ten cars in for their mandatory pitstop just before the half hour mark.

Coming straight out of the blocks Soucek quickly found pace  and with twenty minutes remaining had moved up to P7 before coming up behind, and losing time, to the remaining Bhaitech McLaren. After several laps behind the #60 it took an audacious move starting at the exist of turn 1 to get past the McLaren. This manoeuvre was later repeated on the #0 ROAL Z4 but a braking point misjudgement at the first chicane caused the Vantage to be launched across the kerbing compromising its exit speed leading to a side by side entry into the second chicane forcing Soucek to travel through the gravel to avoid a collision.

Despite this track limit altercation the #107 was confirmed in P5 come the chequered flag - a great result.


Despite chasing a somewhat 'wounded' Mercedes Adam wouldn't be able to capitalise on any aero impairment the HTP car may have been suffering and would end the race sandwiched between the Mercedes and the Bhaitech McLaren. P5 again.

Considering that this was the first time the drivers had worked together , the first time Soucek had driven an Aston Martin and the first time the team had entered the Sprint Series a brace of fifth positions is nothing to be sniffed at. It was a great achievement by all.

Qualifying and Main race video

The teams now ship out to Azerbaijan and the city of Baku for the final round of the Blancpain Sprint Series in two weeks time. With this being Beechdean's first experience of a street circuit - it should be interesting!

Photo credits - Blancpain GT Series

After their three car podium success at CoTA last month Aston Martin Racing continued the trend with a further three car podia at Fuji Raceway and round five of the 2014 WEC season.

With Typhoon Vongfong fortunately having slowed its progress over the build up to the meeting a revitalised Craft Bamboo Racing squad were able to establish themselves easily within the top half of the GTE Pro category throughout free practice before Fernando Rees and Alex MacDowall qualified their #99 car for their maiden GTE Pro Pole later on Saturday. Stable mates Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke were to put their #97 GTE Pro car just behind in P2.

Back in GTE Am the #98 Northwest sponsored car of Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard won bragging rights with the class pole over the #95 Young Driver car of David Heinemeier-Hansson and Nicki Thiim, who were only beaten into P2 by just one hundredth of a second at the very end of the session by the #81 AF Corse.

Having had a brief sabbatical from the VLN series Leonard Motorsport's Stuart Leonard and Paul Wilson returned to the Nordschleife on Saturday for VLN 9 and their first competitive run since the Spa 24Hr.

Having qualified their #32 V12 Vantage GT3 in P10 in their SP9 class the British duo were able to bring home their car P5 in class and P6 overall and on the lead lap against the race winning Rowe Racing Mercedes SLS.

Beechdean Motorsport have today launched another of their fantastic photo competitions to win a top prize of a West End Theatre show.

Make sure that you are in it to win it

Full details and T&C's at http://www.beechdeanmotorsport.co.uk/competition/

If you haven't already entered - just a reminder that the WEC are offering a terrific prize of a trip for two to the final round in Brazil to the winner of this competition. Closing date for entries is Thursday 6th November.

Just three weeks after the weather affected shenanigans that was CoTA the fifth round of the 2014 WEC season has seen the team cross the Pacific to the (supposed) land of the rising sun and the beautiful Fuji circuit.

With last weekends Japanese F1 race being severely affected by one typhoon this years 6  Hours of Fuji WEC race is again under threat from mother nature in the form of 50 mile wide super Typhoon Vongfong thats presently gathering momentum to the south west of Japan.



http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/typhoon-vongfong-japan-threat-20141006

Whilst organisers are being ever hopeful that the storm will not directly affect this years event all minds will cast back to last years washout and all will be keen to avoid the repeat of the disappointment that was the abandoning of the event at such an early stage due to circuit conditions. Race Control will also however, be mindful of the accident Jules Bianchi had in F1 on the rain soaked Suzuka track caused by the lesser Typhoon Phanfone.



With weather worries aside and straight from their multi podia success in America the only scheduled change for the four car Aston Martin Racing line up is the return of Nicki Thiim in the #95 Young Driver AMR Vantage in GTE Am.



Following their own class win at CoTA the #97 Turner/Mucke car will be keen to start snapping around the heals of the AF Corse class leaders and second place Manthey Porsche, exerting a little pressure on them looking to close the 19 point championship deficit.

The #99 Craft Bamboo GTE Pro line up will be keen to improve on their somewhat lacklustre performance in Texas.

In GTE Am the #95 lead the #98 in both the team and drivers championship table so both will be looking to consolidate their own advantage over the chasing pack.

Timetable should be (UK) ………………..

• Free Practice 1
  Fri 10th Oct - 03h00
• Free Practice 2
  Fri 10th Oct - 07h30
• Free Practice 3
  Sat 11th Oct - 01h30
• Qualifying Practice
  Sat 11th Oct - 05h20
• Race
  Sun 12th Oct - 03h00
  
  

Photo Credits - WEC