AMR's three questions to WEC success

With the team's three beautiful Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE's lined up ready for the track proceedings of this years World Endurance Championship to begin at Silverstone tomorrow, team boss John Gaw highlighted three dilemmas that would affect the possibilities of his teams success this weekend and in the championship.

Q1 - How much progress had Michelin made over the winter with their teams confidential tyres?

For 2017, the rules regarding tyre allocation and development have changed slightly with inter-season development being banned and the number of sets available per car, per session also being reduced. Gaw made it no secret that he believed that AMR and their tyre partner, Dunlop had made further performance gains over the winter relative to their position last year.


Q2 - How would the new Balance of Performance process work and would it be more successful that the system which it replaced?

Following on from the race by race adjustment in BoP last season, the WEC have put into place a computer programme which will use predetermined parameters of performance per car before any adjustment is made if required. This system will hopefully remove the 'knee jerk reaction' that occurred last year and Gaw spoke about his high hopes for the new system as long as other OEM's had made full disclosure to the series.

All cars will start the season based upon their BoP settings as prescribed at the final round of last year at Bahrain.

Q3 - Porsche?

The appearance of Porsche's new GTE car certainly has the other GTE teams thinking about their position in the 'food chain' - Porsche's BoP will be taken from data returned at its Ladoux but evidence from the IMSA series would certainly indicate a very capable machine.


Only time will tell - the cars are due their first track action of the Silverstone round tomorrow morning (Friday) before their second session at the end of the day.

Tyre management will be the big key this year and with anyone spinning it will not only be the spin that will hinder their efforts a double stinting at least two sets will be a basic necessity and the teams introduction of Dunlop development driver Daniel Serra int the squad eases that issue (slightly)!

#TeamAMR