Out with the old and in with the new (seasons that is!)

Tuesday, December 15, 2015


The end of the 2015 season may now be upon us but at least it will not be long before we can start enjoying racing's high's and low's with the start of 2016's racing in just 30 days time.

Kicking off the proceedings will be the FIA sanctioned International 24 Hr Series by Creventic flagship 24 our event at the Dubai Autodrome over the 14-16th January. First run in 2006 the event will see a capacity starting grid of 100 cars racing across its eight class structure.


Sadly the event will not see any Aston Martin V12 Vantages entered into the series premier A6 class having taking an overall third last year with Paul White, Stefan Mucke and Jonny Adam in the Strata21 car.

It will however see the return of the Speedwork's prepared Global Racing Aston Martin V8 Vantage that took the 2015 SP3 Class title with John Gilbert and Devon Modell. That will be backed up by another SP3 entry from JWB Motorsport featuring Kieran and Liam Griffin, Jake Giddings and another as yet unannounced driver. The exact driver line up for the Global Racing car has also yet to be confirmed.


Looking through the driver listings for the Dubai 24 it will be noted that AMR drivers Stuart Leonard and Michael Meadows (formally racing the Leonard Motorsport V12 Vantage GT3 in the Blancpain series in 2015) are listed against a Belgium Audi Club Team WRT entry! Also Roald Goethe and Stuart Hall will be seen entered with the 2015 overall winning car of the Ram Racing Mercedes SLS team. Whilst many drivers/teams see and use the event as a pre season work out for their respective national and international events is the Creventic Series going to be the series of choice for the German businessman and gentleman driver (and his mentor) after his traumatic WEC experience and arguments with the ACO?

Two weeks after this attention will then turn to the eastern coast of Florida for the 54th running of the Rolex 24 and the start of the (new for 2016) Weathertech Sportscar Championship at the Daytona International Speedway at the end of January.


Whilst the official entry list has yet to be announced it is believed that there will be three Aston Martin V12 Vantages entered into the GT Daytona class only. Two cars are understood to have been entered by Kevin Buckler's Customer Team TRG-AMR whilst the third car is widely believed to be a pseudo factory GTD entry for Canadian businessman and AMR WEC entrant Paul Dalla Lana.


In 2015 Dalla Lana, together with full WEC season drivers Pedro Lamy and Mathia Lauda entered the North American Endurance Cup with a full GTLM specification Vantage but poor comparative performance from the V8 Vantage saw that entry fizzle out soon after. That entry together with extended factory support for TRG will see that entry be revised down to GTD only. It is assumed that all three cars will be 2016 variants of the successful GT3 car.

We also believe that Dalla Lana will again be supported by Lamy and Lauda for the event and some sites have also been suggesting that AMR factory driver Richie Stanaway will also be in the #98 car.

Another Aston Martin Racing driver will be at the Rolex 24 - Jonny Adam will be driving the Whelen sponsored Daytona Prototype having won the Sunoco Whelen Challenge.


We wish them and all drivers a good but safe start to the 2016 season - both events will be available to view on line with details being confirmed nearer the time.


Photo credits 

Aston Martin Racing
TRG-AMR
Creventic
Richard Leach
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