Young Driver AMR concludes WEC season with fourth place

Young Driver AMR finished it’s debut season in the GTE Pro class of the FIA World Endurance Championship with a fourth place finish at the season finale in Bahrain. The all Danish driver line up of Marco Sørensen, Nicki Thiim and Christoffer Nygaard missed a podium finish only by a margin of 5,9 seconds after six hours of racing in their Aston Martin Racing entered Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin Vantage GTE. "We would have liked to finish the season on the podium, but eventually our strategy didn’t went as planned”, said Young Driver AMR´s Jan Struve. "It was a tough season, but it was good to see us competitive again in the final race.

After the GTE Pro Aston Martin were allowed to race with the Balance of Performance level from the start of the season, the #95 Aston Martin was able to fight for podium positions again, which clearly wasn’t the case in the previous races. During qualifying, Sørensen posted the quickest lap time in class. In the first part of the race, the Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin raced in second position and briefly took the lead for one lap. Eventually the pit stop strategy didn’t work out and the Danish trio had to pit for an extra stop, which finally cost a podium finish.

"At the end, it was a very close race,” said Struve. "Finally, after a couple of really hard weekends, we got a performance break and more power. As a result, we reduced the gap to our competitors. The team and all drivers again did a fantastic job, unfortunately we were unlucky with our strategy. Nevertheless it was good to see us competitive again.”

In it’s debut season in the GTE Pro class, the premier class in international GT racing, Young Driver AMR finished every race it participated in and claimed one Pole Position at the season opening round at Silverstone. Young Driver AMR finished sixth in the LM GTE Pro Endurance Trophy for Teams. Sørensen and Nygaard, who drove the #95 machine in all seven rounds the team competed, finished the season in eight position in the FIA Endurance Trophy for GT drivers.