Constructive preparation at the Roar

Monday, January 11, 2016

It appears that both the Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GTD's enjoyed a constructive preparatory test at Daytona over the weekend in readiness for the Rolex24 there in a couple of weeks time.

As announced last year partner team TRG-AMR together with Aston Martin Racing itself in full factory support, have entered a single car programme each for the opening round of the 2016 IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship in Florida.

With drivers interchanging between teams over the winter break TRG-AMR have taken on a Mexican tone with the arrival of three domestically succesful Mexicans and a Brit all all under the watchful eye of F1 star Sergio Perez. Ricardo Pérez de Lara, Antonio Pérez, Santiago Creel and Lars Viljoen join the team for this event as part of a driver development programme by Perez.

Over in the #98 AMR car, WEC regulars Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Richie Stanaway all undertook the all important cross over training and familiarisation from a GTE that ether have all been used to to a GTD car in readiness for the event that has not always been kind to the factory drivers. The two TRG-AMR GTD cars sandwiched the factory GTLM (GTE) car at last years showcase event.

In the absence of any publicly known testing programme for any of the entries all fortunately came away relatively unscathed even despite mother nature trying her best to upset proceedings and multiple red flags for incidents and accidents around the iconic track. Ultimate pace and quickest lap times not of the essence.

Also worthy of note would be AMR factory driver Jonny Adam completing his familiarisation training in the Action Express Daytona Prototype at the extended test weekend as part of his Sunoco Whelen Challenge prize.

Track action for the Rolex24 kicks off on Thursday 28th January with the race itself starting at 14:00hrs (local) on Saturday 30th January. Live streaming can be found at IMSA TV.