Great to see the rekindling of interest in the 24H series
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
It was only two or three years ago that the Creventic's International Endurance Series had two to three Aston Martin Racing customer teams running full season entries before dwindling to none for most of last year and so far this year.
Previous regulars like Speedwork's Global Racing Vantage GT4 were joined by KPM Motorsports Vantage GT3 and then the Danish Massive Motorsport Vantage GT3 after that before interest from these AMR teams appeared to wain and the teams moved to series new.
A double AMR entry at last years 24H Series event at the Circuit of the Americas was the last event and we saw Aston Martin's CEO Andy Palmer get behind the wheel of the 'pocket rocket' Vantage GT8 along with other household motorsport names as well as an AMR Factory driver joining the American De La Torre Vantage GT3 effort.
With five rounds of the 2018-19 24H GT Series already under there belts, the next round of the Series sees it move to Barcelona before finishing off at Spa, CoTA and Dubai respectively. Looking through the provision entries for these remaining rounds we see a rekindled interest from a few AMR Customer teams with Swiss based R-Motorsport getting the ball rolling with one of their V12 Vantage GT3's being entered into that 24 hour race. Team co-owner Andreas Baenziger is joined by team regulars from their VLN/Bathurst days of Peter Leemhuis and Markus Lungstrass.
Next up at Spa Francorchamps in mid October we see the return of the AMR Performance Centre Vantage GT8 with Andy Palmer again joining with Peter Cate and Sir Chris Hoy as they prepare for the 'big one' as the series returns to Texas in mid November for the two part 24Hours of CoTA.
That race will see the AMR Performance Centre GT8 return for its second consecutive visit to the circuit alongside the R-Motorport Vantage GT3, the De La Torre Vantage GT3, the Speedworks Vantage GT4 as well as two possible Vantage GT4 entries from Florida based Automatic Racing.
There are sadly no Aston Martin entries presently listed for next years 24 hours of Dubai and there are no driver listings for any of the cars listed for CoTA but its still good to see the 24H Series coming back onto the radar for the gentleman driver with an Aston Martin Racing car at their disposal!
Photo credits - 24H / Automatic / BES