Fresh from his British GT GT4 Championship winning performance from Donington Park at the weekend, Kent based racer Jack Mitchell is back over in China ready to face his greatest test in the China GT Championship as he hopes to secure his championship crown of the year.

Racing the #618 China Equity AMR V8 Vantage GT4, Mitchell and co driver Ryan Liu presently lead the GT4 Championship by four points from Radical RXC racer and fellow Englishman, Tom Ashton. The characteristics of that leader board changed somewhat after two disastrous racers for both the China Equity AMR crew but also by their then main championship contenders in the  Winning Team McLaren 570s - it was just a case of the #618 car doing less badly!


Races nine and ten of a twelve race season takes place on a street circuit around the city of Wuhan in central China. We believe that this may be Mitchell's first taste of a street circuit which he will partner new co driver Stanley Yang who replaces Liu at least at this event due to the Am drivers recent bout of collisions and race time wasting penalties. Yang is the driver that AMR factory driver Ross Gunn partnered last year in the Championship in which the Taiwanese driver finished third overall - this year the team want to win the class!


Like all street circuits Qualifying is everything as by the looks there will be little availability to overtake without risk and faced with a new person who has not raced for nearly a year at the wheel of his car any emphasis to recover any situation on track will be upon Mitchell's shoulders.

Both races take place over the 4th/5th October.

Photo credit - China GT

After many more months and thousands of kilometres later, the first competitive track action for the new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 has finally been confirmed today as being at the penultimate round of the VLN Series at the infamous Green Hell.

First hinted at by AMR's President David King back in May at the ADAC Zurich 24H event, the team have finally confirmed that AMR factory and development driver Darren Turner will be at the helm of their factory's latest GT3 creation with World Endurance Championship team mate Maxime Martin and will compete in the SPX class due to the chassis present non-homologated state.


Data from this year's N24 event from aboard their V12 Vantage GT3 platform will be compared against that being received from the new car during the VLN8 event so makes the event extremely useful to the team and their technicians before the all in important and defining homolagating process begins early next year.

Also confirmed to race at VLN8 will be AMR's WEC reserve driver Ross Gunn who will compete at the Nordschleife for the very first time alongside new recently recruited Aston Martin Lagonda high performance development driver Chris Goodwin in one of the Test Centres Vantage GT4's as both start their path to their full GT3 Nordschleife permit.


Turner will also be on double driving duty that weekend as he will also be listed with another AMR Performance Centre entry for Jurgen Kroner and Marco Muller in the Vantage S.

Since the new Vantage GT3's world debut at the Le Mans Festival back in June the chassis has undertaken thousands of laps of developmental testing all over Europe as well as being made available to the factory's customer teams to test and order ready for the 2019 season. "It is the perfect place to test the car in a competitive environment as we sharpen areas of its development ahead of its homologation" said David King at the announcement.



In terms of the VLN Series itself, it will be great to see more Aston Martin's at the event seeing that the last few rounds have struggled to attract any significant volumes of the marque from amongst their customer base. Last weekend at the VLN7 event saw only Marco Muller and Erik Manning complete in the event aboard the Performance Centre's #150 car as full season entrant's AVIA Racing failed to start the event due to ongoing technical issues with their own GT4 and it is yet known whether they will enter that event or not.

The VLN8 four hour race will be on Saturday 6th October.

Photo credits - AMR

The 2018 Blancpain GT Series has certainly been a difficult one for the three Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 cars entered into both its Pro and Silver Cup classes. This weekend, we see the final race of the six round season come to an end with sadly just team and personal honour at stake with all three cars already out of any headline championship titles.

Swiss based R-Motorsport's first venture into top flight European GT3 racing with their new Arden Motorsport technical partners has certainly ventured them onto steep learning curve which they have sometimes excelled at to the point of winning the Silverstone round back in May and then claiming overall pole position for the Spa 24 later in July. That successes has unfortunately also been blighted with both bad luck an misfortune that sees them presently placed unjustly lower in the championship table than they perhaps ought to have been considering the abilities of their six drivers.


The team's #76 and #62 cars will see out the season with their usual three driver line up each as will the TF Sport prepared Oman Racing crew who themselves will round off their first venture into the new for 2018 Silver Cup class after previous years success in Pro-Am.


Again, it wouldn't be exaggerating any fact that the #97 has been incredibly unlucky this season with at least two decent race results destroyed by the errant ways of others with the teams blue, white and gold Vantage sustaining race ending damage in the process. Their exploits into the Spa 24 sadly typified that position with an early exit due to accident damage.

Like R-Motorsport, Oman Racing find themselves over hundred points behind their respective class leaders so Barcelona will just have to be one for what they can each get out of it as both teams run their V12 Vantage GT3 one last time before all three chassis are expected to be replaced with the new turbo based car ready for the 2019 season.

Photo credits - BES / R-Motorsport

Now, if we were to say 'best of Italian' marques you would presumably come back with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and Pagani but you wouldn't exactly place an Aston Martin amongst that crowd of Italian testosterone!

Well this year and invited as a wild card entry saw one of the owners of an Aston Martin Vulcan and its Newbridge Motorsport support crew made their way down to northern Italy to be part in the 'Best of Italy Festival' that took place the other weekend in order to showcase to the Italian public its uniquely Aston Martin Lagonda persona as all these super and hyper cars 'paraded' themselves along a 26km section of public road before indulging in the finer parts of Italian cuisine and entertainment.


We of course saw Gleb Stepanov race his chassis #6 Vulcan to great effect with co driver Stephen Tomkins both at the Le Mans Festival back in June where they finished a very credible seventh overall and earlier this month at Snetterton where the duo claimed the first ever race win for a Vulcan at the AMOC meeting.

Being fortunate enough to own such a car, Stepanov is seeking out possibilities that both he an other 'Vulcaneers' can participate in in the public domain as to date the vast majority of Vulcan running has been behind closed doors. "I have plenty of ambition for the car as I love it so much' he said, "it is vital to find other Vulcaneers to join in hence I am promoting and supporting events such as these as much as possible".


Another point of note relating to this car is not just that it is part of a very small number of examples ever built by Aston Martin (24 in total) but this car is also the only example of a fully road legal version having undergone a transformation process back from something that was a pure track day car to something that is more appropriate on the public highway by the RML Group. The more astute of you will notice that despite this fact the car has also been upgraded back up to AMR Pro levels.




Prior to the event all of the supercar entries were allowed a day of 'testing' at the AutodromoVarono before static displays within the publically accessed paddock and  a supposed pace car controlled hill climb ascents between Castell’Arquato and Morfasso on both Saturday and Sunday. Videos off this years events on Youtube already show it as a slightly more organised "mad Friday' congregation that we would have seen over the Le Mans 24Hr weekend!




After the event, the team headed to the Italian circuit of Vallelunga where they, three other Vulcans and various members of the Aston Martin Racing team enjoyed a track day to themselves, activity that also included the continued testing for the new for 2019 AMR Vantage GT3.

We are still to hear back from the team whether or not they will be attending the final round of the Aston Martin Owners Club Racing meeting at Silverstone next weekend.

Photo credits - Best of Italy Festival / RML Group / AMR

For the second time this year a very welcome visitor made another stealthy entrance into a racing paddock to take pride of place for the viewing public.

Unlike at the Aston Martin Racing Festival paddock at Le Mans back in June, the new turbo charged V8 Vantage GT4 was this time a fully working development chassis about to hit a race track for the very first time as the team progress the chassis to its fully homologated state in time for the start of the 2019 season.


Taking its place outside the Beechdean AMR hospitality unit at Donington Park on Sunday, the deep blue with lime green detailed car certainly caused a stir with not just the public but also with many members of the AMR Customer team family seeing it for the first time. Long time AMR customer Andrew Howard and AMR factory driver Nicki Thiim were certainly very interested to hear and see  the technical detail that lies behind the facade of the car with another team even stealing the 'limelight' to showcase there latest acquisition of two such cars to the paddock!


With a few notable changes in appearance this time around to that at Le Mans - namely the more sculptured and proportioned rear spoiler - we understood from the team that the car has only completed a 'few hundred' kilometres of straight line systems check runs along a local runway, mainly in the capable hands of Ross Gunn but the car is now due to hit a race track proper within the next few days.


The final round of the British GT Championship was of course used to announce the first few official sales of the factory's new GT3 and GT4 Vantages to teams like TF Sport, Optimum Motorsport and Academy Motorsport although we understand that several more chassis of each class were also on the order sheet with deposits paid for with several more teams within that paddock.


Keeping details close to their chests, the best we could get out of the factory personnel was that delivery of these early confirmed cars 'should' be by the end of the year but that will obviously depend upon how testing and development continues to progress with the cars. We saw that Marco Sorensen had flown immediately after the #Doningtondecider to Jerez to continue the test programme of the GT3 chassis after its previous run out at Vallelunga with Jonny Adam and Darren Turner in Italy last week.


Seeing that the development GT4 car came to the circuit with a passenger seat fitted we had to suggest to the team that they should run a competition to win a hot seat ride in the car at one its future UK test days! It would be rude not too after all!!

With six units already confirmed the future is bright - the future is #limelight!

After six months of highly competitive racing around the best of British race tracks plus their annual excursion abroad, the 2018 British GT Championship finally came to a conclusion on Sunday with Aston Martin Racing customer team's and drivers standing tall having claimed four Championship titles at an unsurprisingly eventful 'Donington Decider'.

Optimum Motorsport's Flick Haigh and Jonny Adam completed what they needed to do to secure their place in the Championship's history books with a fourth place finish at the end of the final round's two hour race - enough to win them the overall Championship despite the best efforts of the Barwell and TF Sport rivals who both finished in front of them.


That result also earned Haigh the honour of being the first woman driver to win the overall championship as well as the her previous accolades of being first woman driver to qualify on pole in her own right followed by being the first woman to win the GT3 class race - all achievements that she earned first time out at Oulton Park back in early April and despite treacherous track conditions.


Aston Martin Racing placed co-driver Jonny Adam also earned himself a further entry into his on- going chapter of the Championship by winning his third GT3 crown.


Team Boss Shaun Goff was beyond words as he tried to convey his utmost admiration and respect for his new race pairing that had started on such 'shaky ground' as Haigh nervously first tested her new Vantage GT3 with Adam at a cold and damp Snetterton back in January through to the guts and determination of a driver who was no longer afraid to 'mix it' with more seasoned racers at even the all deciding final round at the weekend! That is not only great credit to the character of the pupil who was willing to learn and develop but also absolute credit to the tutor who has now coached some three amateur drivers to the same prize.


By virtue of Sunday's results Haigh and Adam also claim the 2018 Pro-Am Championship and Haigh the Blancpain Trophy each time just ahead of Barwell's Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen who, for a third time narrowly miss out on the big prize!


The only GT3 Championship that either Haigh, Adam and Optimum didn't win was the GT3 Team Championship as that award went to fellow AMR Customer team, TF Sport who themselves finished just nine points ahead of the Barwell team thanks to a stellar drive from the #11 car of Mark Farmer and Nicki Thiim to finish P2 at Donington after a time penalty had been applied for track limits - they had actually crossed the line first!


With TF Sport, Sunday's race was also the end of an era as Derek Johnston hung up his race suit for the (query) final time however sadly with a bitter taste after having been hit from behind with some force by the #1 Team Parker Racing Bentley sustaining terminal damage to the cars gearbox and forcing a much premature end to his tenure in the British GT paddock. Also as a result of that we didn't get to see Marco Sorensen perform his swan song stint in the car either!


When we (and we know others noticed too) shook Johnston's hand and thanked him for the time, efforts and service to the sport, we saw a slight welling up in his eye's with a ' I only raced a car' as he made a polite exit to the throng that was his family and friends in the TF garage. Somehow - we don't think that it will be too long before he is back in a car somewhere - maybe a selective round return to the Championship maybe but anyway, Johnston will take his car home with him as a keep sake to his AMR/BGT adventures that after all landed him the GT3 Championship title back in 2016.


Both Optimum and TF Sport have already been confirmed as the earlier precipitants of two examples each of the new GT3 and GT4 platforms apiece that we hope the teams will reveal details of in good time.

The final Championship winning performance from the weekend came from someone not directly competing within an AMR car but someone who is very much 'up and coming' with the factory team as Jack Mitchell secured a solo Championship win in his Century Motorsport BMW M4.


Formally with MacMillan AMR, Mitchell is also presently leading the China GT GT4 Championship in the #618 China Equity AMR entry that he did share with Ryan Liu as that series enters its final two events of the season with a street circuit format coming next up in just two weeks time.


For the rest of the Aston Martin Racing customer team contingent, Donington proved to be just as bruising and 'character building' as any previous round of the championship if you believe that rubbing is racing!


Jetstream Motorsport found that the only way past the 'blocking' Barwell Lamborghini was the hard way with a last minute and very elbows out move on the #69 car at the Melbourne hairpin before slipping off the circuit on someone else's oil at turn 1 before returning to the track under the Safety Car for some more panel bashing from others. Drivers Graham Davidson and Maxime Martin would finish the race P11 and the championship in P7 so for their somewhat last minute confirmation into the Championship having never driven the car or having even met each other - that is some achievement that they should all be proud of. They did win the Spa round after all!


For Beechdean AMR, their earlier good start to their return to the domestic GT scene had been hampered by some mid season misfortune so were hoping to round the year off on a high. As a result of Darren Turner's off track excursion during Qualifying, the #99 car that he shares with team boss Andrew Howard started lower down the starting grid than they had first hoped but they still found themselves as being one of the many stuck behind the intentionally slowly Lamborghini.

Despite some very competitive wheel to wheel racing in the opening stages, contact with the Nissan spun both cars around loosing them both a substantial amount of time before both were able to return to the track. After the pitstop it was the turn of Turner to come to the attention of the race officials for track limits earning himself a drive through penalty although he was later able to redeem himself with a multiple overtake to claim the cars finishing position of P5 - the position they also finished in the Championship. We await for news of a 2019 campaign.


The biggest heartache sadly befell the Academy Motorsport crew again and their two V8 Vantage GT4 entries of Will Moore/Matt Nichol-Jones and Jan Jonck/Tom Wood. Having started side by side on the grid and having earlier 'hijacked' the display of the new AMR Vantage GT4, Donington would again be cruel to the them all.

With the shenanigans of the opening lap, the #61 Moore car became embroiled in early contacts within the GT4 field that would leave several cars damaged dropping him down the order whilst local boy Tom Wood would benefit from that to find himself running up to third in class by the time of the Safety Car that was later called for the oil at turn 1. Just before the restart however, the #62 Wood car would suffer a puncture, albeit very close to the pit lane but enough to drop them out of contention.


That bad luck was quickly followed by disaster for the team as the #61 disappeared from the timing screen after apparently suffering engine failure going downteh Craner Curves marking the disappointing end of the season to Moore's/Nichol-Jones' intermittent season. For the other car, Donington would typify their own season of bad luck and misfortune (mostly not of their own making it has to be said) to finish down in P25 - some three laps down to the winning GT4.


All in all 2018 has been a year that Aston Martin Racing could easily showcase as the inaugeral year for their V12 Vantage GT3, claiming multiple podium finsihes throughout the year both in GT3 and GT4. Some teams have already confirmed their acquirement of the new turbo charged car with many more waiting to do similar.

With many national and European seasons now at an end we will have to await the timely announcements of such new race programmes as and when the teams see fit!

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey / AMR / ChinaGT

It was great to get down to the Donington Park paddock today in time for the British GT Championship to run out its final Qualification session of the season with both the GT3 and GT4 titles still very much up for grabs.

Both TF Sport and the Optimum V12 Vantage GT3's formed the top of the timing screen at the end of Free Practice 1 with then Beechdean and the #11 TF Sport car taking the honours by the end of Free Practice 2 in the dry conditions showing that the V12 was still very much a competitive platform amongst a field of many newer cars despite her imminent retirement as a factory supported platform.


Then the rain came just after lunch forcing the teams to make late set up changes to their cars and without the benefit of running it out on track before a timed lap and that must have had an impact on to the following sessions.


The GT3 Amateur drivers were out first for their ten minute qualifying session with the nearest championship rival to the Optimum crew (the #33 Lamborghini of Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen) taking early top honours with a cool 1.2 second gap to Graham Davidson in his Jetstream Vantage.

Both Farmer and Johnston in the TF Sport cars struggled with the conditions with Johnston even having a slight off track excursion that simply lost him any remaining tyre temperature that he had. Worse was to follow as both TF Sport cars even missed the chequered flag to their session and completed an additional lap earning themselves a visit to the race stewards to boot. Hopefully - that will not lead to any grid penalty for tomorrows race?


Next up were of course the Pro drivers, with this time both Barwell Lamborghini's locking out the front row with the best AMR car being the Marco Sorensen (again) in forth with three more Vantages directly behind him but with Darren Turner suffering from the effects of a broken exhaust and needing to pit with two laps of time still left on the clock.

The overall consequence of the Am and Pro combined times is the the Barwell front row lock out will be followed by the #47 Jetstream car of Davidson and Maxime Martin starting in P3 , the #75 Optimium car in P4, P5 and P6 for the Farmer/Thiim and Johnston/Sorensen TF Sport cars respectively and and Andrew Howard/Turner car down in P8.


Over in GT4, the two Academy Motorsport cars of Matt Nichol-Jones with Will Moore and Tom Wood with Jan Jonck showed their clean pair of heels as first Wood and Moore finished P4 and P6 out of the nineteen strong field with Nichol-Jones and Jonck completing their session P5 and P8 respectively. All of that equated to both Academy cars starting their final race aboard their venerable V8 Vantage GT4's on the third row for tomorrows grid.


The biggest question for tomorrow remains the threat of rain - if or when it will hit the Leicestershire circuit and the severity and duration of it if or when it arrives. Present Met Office forecasts show a distinct downgrade with the forecast - which is good - so fingers crossed!

Title and TF Sport photo credit - Jacob Ebrey

They say that there is no time like the present and that is certainly the case at Academy Motorsport.

Fresh on the heals of it being confirmed today that the Worcester based team have indeed secured two of the first batch of new Aston Martin Racing's V8 Vantage GT4 ready for the start of the 2019 season, the team have put the first 'feelers' out in the racing community for suitable abled drivers to test for a potential seat.

Having raced for the last couple of years within the British GT Championship and the GT4 European Series, team boss Matt Nichol-Jones has tonight posted out to potentially interested parties to contact him at info@academymotorsport.com for a similar campaign in either or similar series.

Photo credit - AMR

Never one to let a photo opportunity pass them by, Aston Martin Racing and their customer teams entered into this weekends finale of the 2018 British GT Championship have tonight come up with some extraordinary liveries that will help them and us celebrate their racing achievements over the years aboard one of their V12 Vantage GT3's as the car enters its final race weekend in the UK as a factory supported platform.

At the fore are of course Beechdean AMR and TF Sport with multiple BGT GT3 Championship wins between them and who's roofs have been bedecked with these fabulous graphical reminders of previous good times.



Behind them on the grid is the Optimum Motorsport car who's championship winning and history making achievements may just get confirmed on Sunday after an incredible first year with AMR. Then there is the Jetstream car with a pair who have also enjoyed their first win with AMR at perhaps one of the toughest tracks in the BGT calendar at Spa Francorchamps.


Meanwhile, Academy Motorsports two V8 Vantage GT4's also take a bow in their extremely competitive class as both cars look to race their final race in the championship aboard their also soon to be replaced cars at the final round.

Photo credits - AMR

Six months ago the British GT Championship kicked off with their first race of the 2018 season from Oulton Park under what could only be described as deteriorating track conditions, conditions that finally lead to the abandonment of their second race of the day.

Eight highly entertaining and eventful races later, the final two hours of the 2018 Championship is due to start at Donington Park this Sunday with most of the GT3 and GT4 Championships still to be resolved with the event deservedly still claiming its Donington Decider hashtag.


Sadly for this event and for those drivers who still have a possibility of championship success, they appear to need to quickly rekindle their wet weather racing abilities as it looks like the finale will suffer similar weather conditions as befell the opening round with weather warnings for significant rainfall and blustery winds in place for much of the weekend.

Whilst it appears that Saturday's Free Practice and Qualifying sessions should see mainly dry running conditions with rain not forecasted until towards the end of the days schedule and overnight it does appear that the race is due to be 'hit' to some degree with an increasing intensity of rainfall and increasing windspeed likely.


Should this happen, this will obviously lead to treacherous track conditions for the drivers and for some potentially soggy watching for the spectators - so if you do come and please do come  - just come prepared!

Hopefully, track conditions and events on track will allow the venerable Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 see out her British GT career as a factory supported chassis in style with a win and a Championship (maybe)!

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey