All roads this weekend lead to the Nordschleife for next weeks 24!

Thursday 26th May see's the start to formal proceedings that lead to the jewel in the 2016 GT racing calendar - the ADAC Zurich 24 Hour from the Nordschleife circuit, Germany and will featuring the normal mix of multi GT formulae across its predicted 159 car entry.

Aston Martin Racing return to the "Green Hell' with a two car factory line up in their pursuance of snatching glory from the home based manufacturers who have mastered this event for so long. They have the assistance of its eight professional drivers currently employed within the World Endurance Championship.


2015 was somewhat of a disappointing year for AMR with their leading car suffering both mishap and technical issues to finish ten laps down to the eventual winner down in sixteenth place whilst its sister car failed to finish.


Parent company Aston Martin Lagonda also return with one of their race car cum road car turned racing car - the recently released Vantage GT8. They did similar last year with a brace of the its then new 'cousin' - the Vantage GT12. We are not too sure if the driver line up for this car has been quite finalised or not as that would place one driver in two cars for the event.


As well as three full season VLN entries from Avia Racing, Fanclub Mathol Racing and from the Aston Martin Test Centre itself in their respective SP10 (V8 GT4's) and SP8 (V12) Vantages respectively, we also get to see new Technical Partner AF Racing / R Motorsport's V8 SP8 Vantage entry for the first time. This team, together with its direct association with Aston Martin St Gallen form part of the new technical association announced by Aston Martin Lagonda with Red Bull Racing in the factory's quest to design and build a new hyper car with designer Adrian Newey.


Thursday's track activity kicks off with the only Free Practice session of the event in the afternoon before nearly four hours of Qualifying 1 that ends just before midnight. Rolling in Saturday morning there are a further two hours of Qualifying 2 to decide the now infamous forty minute Top 30 shoot out starting just before 20:00hrs local.

   
Beside an early morning sixty minute warm up the main track action will begin at 15:10hrs local with a single full circuit formation lap before the expected green flag to seat the race itself at 15:30hrs local.


Photo credits - VLN - AMR - Avis Racing