Aston Martin Racing busy in Portugal

This is week has been somewhat of a busy one for the guys and girls at Aston Martin Racing who have been pounding the track at Estoril in preparation for both the 2016 World Endurance Championship and the finale of the 2015 European Le Mans Series.

It was customer team Beechdean Motorsport who had the benefit of an empty track earlier this week to test their V8 Vantage GTE in preparation for their expected entry into the European Le Mans Series finale at the Portuguese circuit in just over a couple of weeks time with Andrew Howard's most recent racing acquisition.


Having only shared the car with Liam Griffin at the Aston Martin Festival at Le Mans in June further track mileage and setup was the order of the single day test for Howard in order for him to transpose between the handling characteristics of a V12 GT3 and the V8 GTE.  Jonny Adam and an as yet to be announced third driver (without giving anything away) were also on hand at the circuit to assist with this transition.

This race will be seen as a precursor to an expected full season 2016 European Le Mans Series entry by the team.


It has now transpired that the new 2016 Vantage GTE has today also been at the circuit getting some crucial test miles on the clock following the recent FIA Balance of Performance test in France earlier this month.

With the present V8 Vantage GTE's having a unfavourable balance of power within the WEC at the moment it highly likely that factory emphasis has now been placed fully onto the new car in readiness for the 2016 WEC season where it will come up against the all new Ford GT and the new Ferrari 488.

It was later reported that at least AMR factory drivers Richie Stanaway and Jonny Adam were both on driver duty with the new GTE.


Prodrive also this week published a picture of the new 2016 specification V8 Vantage GT4.


The 2016 GT4 now features the Vantage V12 road car bonnet. This has additional vents both aiding cooling and releasing under-bonnet air pressure, improving front-end aerodynamics. The car also has the latest Aston Martin seven speed semi-automatic transmission for faster shifts and a better spread of ratios.