Its time to get back to business in the WEC
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Its now been how many weeks since the last round of the World Endurance Championship from Le Mans and we have inconveniently placed ourselves some six thousand miles away from home and therefore the next round of this 2018-2019 Super-Season that kicks off from Silverstone this weekend!
Usually the first round of the season, Silverstone was a late entry into this transitional calendar for the WEC as it moves to a winters series for the 2020 season and unfortunately for many (like ourselves) in the UK, the event finds itself in the midst of the summer holiday season. Hopefully the ongoing good weather back home will encourage the crowds to go and watch the best endurance racing series in the world!
For Aston Martin Racing this year is off course the first year of its new V8 turbo charged car and having already run two almost technical faultless runs at both the opening round at Spa Francorchamps in May and then at the 24hour at Le Mans in June, Silverstone will still be another developmental event for the teams two new GTE Pro entries as they look to get their cars on par with the more established Porsche, Ford and Ferrari Pro class entries.
The team have already acknowledged that some better set up within the car will allow for some improved track performance after the three other teams mentioned above left the Pro class with two tiers in performance with both AMR and BMW each not being as quick as a package with their new GTE contenders at the two previous rounds than the others. Time to consider reams of technical data between rounds as well as a test day at Silverstone last month will have helped the team to move the project further forward.
For Silverstone, we understand that AMR have indeed been given a small performance improvement in accordance with the FIA's Technical Committee's 'Auto-bop' system but maybe some of us will view these increases (although in the right direction) as not being as significant as first envisaged or indeed hoped - only comparitive laps times entered by the cars new two driver line up will confirm where the actually stand.
One thing from the team will be absolute and that will be its determination to take the fight to their class advisories in front of their home crowd regardless - never have we seen AMR sit back and complain about parity (or lack of) and we can be sure that Messrs, Sorensen and Thiim aboard the #95 and Martin and Lynn aboard the #97 will be all doing their utmost to succeed - for the win hopefully but if not for pride!
Presently the #95 crew (including Darren Turner) sit P7 in the GTE Pro class Drivers Championship with AMR themselves sitting in P4 in the Manufacturers table after the two events so all is still to play for.
In GTE Am, the most significant change has been the temporary transfer of Jonny Adam from the factory team #97 car to the TF Sport entry in lieu of Euan Hankey for the remaining six hour races of the season. Being no stranger to the team nor their older 2016 specification GTE car, Adam joins Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood in a car that we can fully expect to see it have another great on track battle with their #98 stablemate car like we did at Spa in May.
The #98 car of Paul Dalla-Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda continues as a full customer entry ran by the factory team and therefore remains unchanged.
Both the #90 an #98 cars ended their 24 Hours of Le Mans prematurely with technical issues so both teams will be looking to build upon their exiting score line secured at Spa of 18 and 25 points respectively.
All being well, we will be back in time to watch Qualifying on Saturday afternoon ahead of the start of the 6Hrs of Silverstone on Sunday.
Oh - and don't forget the TF Sport competition - #TFSport!!
Photo credit - WEC
