Ramping up for April

As we come out of the winter doldrums here in Blighty,  the next few weeks should start to brighten our days and give us all a good taster of what's coming up from an international, european and national racing perspective.

For the Aston Martin Racing stable that journey literally starts with what is considered to be their now annual pilgrimage to southern Europe for their works and customer teams (with other invited guests) to this years choice of the Monteblanco circuit, southern Spain for the weekend of the 7/8th March.

It is expected that many of their full season WEC entry drivers will be at the event gaining valuable track time, particularly the 'as yet unannounced' drivers for both the Gulf Racing and Rees/MacDowall cars whose identities should be announced any time between now and the end of the month. Alongside the works team it also the custom to invite their customer teams such as Beechdean, TF Sport, Strata21 and Motorbase, etc along so that they can test with their own GT3 and GT4 cars under the full technical guidance of the factory. We are expecting most of the British GT/Blancpain series entered teams will attend.

This event sadly normally takes place only behind closed doors with only small pieces of information being allowed to flow out on social media - so we may have to wait a bit longer to find anything out!


Next up, and just a few days later will be the official test days for the Blancpain Endurance Series over the 11/12th March at the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France.

It may be the case that a few teams taking part in this test will also have been in Spain for the private AMR test. Whilst only Leonard Motorsport have confirmed their full BES season entry it is understood that they will be joined by at least three other cars from the AMR stable including driver placements for those taking part under the new driver Evolution Academy.

Further information regarding the test, together with information regarding free admission can be found here


Following that,  next up will be Media Day (and official test) for the British GT series at Brand Hatch on Wednesday 25th March. In the absence of any confirmed information it is expected that all named series AMR entries shall be at the Kent circuit with is also allowing free public admission to the event.

Again, it is still expected that there shall be at least another two to three (possibly more) Aston Martin entries announced prior to this date. Particular reference is made towards Motorbase, who have to date not announced any 2015 participation.



Finally, at the end of the month it will be the turn of the 'big boys' to officially test with the European Le Mans Series testing at Paul Ricard on the 23/24th March followed by the FIAWEC 'Prologue' (Official Test) at the same circuit on the 28th March.


Whilst further information on the WEC event and free trackside admission can be found here the  ELMS test is unfortunately a closed event.

If all of this isn't enough then you'll obviously need to include all the other private testing that many of these teams shall be doing over the coming weeks all in readiness for the 2015 racing season that effectively starts in April.

Don't forget to breathe as the season is only about to begin ……………….!!