Early proceedings for the 2019 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour race kicked off this afternoon with a new Spa 24 esq' drivers parade and drive to the circuit from the Bathurst town centre for a representative group of cars taken from this years entry.

With one example from each brand on parade that duty fell to the Am entry from Swiss based R-Motorsport with their #62 Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 - a car previously raced by them in the Blancpain GT Series but this time making its final appearance with the team as an AMR factory supported platform. All of the drivers (although one did evade this photo) were on hand to meet and greet those who attended the parade in another example of something that GT based motorsport does so well - fan access and interaction.


No strangers to 'The Mountain' in south-east Australia, this year will be the first that the team have competed in the top flight GT3 class having previously settled (and achieved) so well before in both the GT4 and INV class. Last time out for the crew was with Aston Martin's GT8 car in 2017.

Track action for the main event of the meeting begins Friday morning with three practice sessions before lunch before a fourth in the afternoon. Things then become very serious just before lunch on Saturday with Qualifying all classes and then Class A (GT3's) only before the highly exciting Top 10 Shootout later in the early evening.


The start of the 12hour itself begins at 05:45am local - Sydney is GMT +11Hrs

62

R-Motorsport

Jake Dennis

Matthieu Vaxiviere

Marvin Kirchhoefer

Aston Martin Vantage GT3

A

760

R-Motorsport

Florian Kamelger

Andreas Baenziger

Peter Leemhuis

Mathew Parry

Aston Martin Vantage GT3

A

The above graphic confirms the driver lists for both of R-Motorsports AMR Vantage GT3's with the #62 being the Pro and the #760 being the Am entry - both Class A.

With all the recent good news of teams confirming their acquisition of the all new 2019 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3's and GT4's with indeed new teams swapping over to the premier British marque from this season, it appears that we now have our first 'casualty'.

Having competed within its national VLN Championship and in periodic entries into the ADAC Zurich 24 Hour race from the Nordschliefe, it now appears that the Avia Racing Team and their Mathol Racing service provider have now split company with the former now also dropping its red and white liveried V8 Vantage GT4 that had become synonymous with the series over their six year history together.


Only up to a couple of years ago were Mathol Racing supporting two to three AMR Vantage GT4 entries for their customer drivers into the VLN series but with Mathol since swapping over to Mercedes machinery it had been left to Avia Racing to fly the flag around the 'Green Hell' - sometimes being the only AMR entrant there.

Avia Racing have since confirmed that they will be racing with the support of Sorg Rennsport with one of their new BMW M4 GT4 cars.


Stephan Hauke, Project Manager at Avia Racing was quoted as saying that "after years of excellent support and track success, the paths of Avia Racing and Mathol Racing are now at an end. Continuing with our older V8 Vantage GT4 would have been uncompetitive considering the opposition yet acquiring a new 2019 model would have left to difficulties and uncertainties particularly with the upcoming Brexit."

That reasoning does appear strange considering teams like Prosport Performance (also based in Germany) acquiring multiple examples of both cars to compete in multiple series across Europe but we imagine that frustrations throughout last season with reliability raised questions within the team before the year was even out.


Anyway - Avia Racing, its been fun sharing your experiences around what is still the best racetrack in the world and we wish you all the best for the future.

Photo credits - VLN / Avia Racing

Stoner Car Care Racing and Automatic Racing launched the 2019 MICHELIN Pilot Challenge season with a strong showing at Daytona in Friday’s BMW Endurance Challenge. With three Aston Martins being fielded by the team, it was a big effort to be prepared for the four hour enduro to open the 2019 IMSA season.

Leading the charge for the Orlando-based squad was the No. 99 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin, driven by rookie Gary Ferrera and veteran Kris Wilson as the team came home with a second place finish after leading nine laps and making a daring last-lap pass to seal second at the finish. 

2019 will be very much of an 'old with the old and in with the new' kind of season for the Worcestershire based Academy Motorsport team as the team will start the year with new cars, new drivers, new transporters and new kit.

Team boss Matt Nichol-Jones confirmed prior to the last round of the 2018 British GT Championship that his squad had been selected to receive two of the first batch of 2019 specification Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 ready for his to field in his preferred British GT and GT4 European Series.

Todays announcement was to confirm the first full British GT season entry for Micah Stanley and Ben Hurst who will compete in the Championship's Silver Cup class.


Eighteen year old Stanley has prior experience of SRO sanctioned series by already having competed in its GT4 European Series with teams including Street Art Racing and their normally aspirated V8 Vantage GT4 as well as in the BRDC Formula 3 Championship.

Hurst, a twenty one year old Canadian national also competed in the BRDC F3 Championship last year and makes his step up to the GT's for the first time. Both drivers have presumably also signed up to the Aston Martin Racings Academy programme - being under the watchful eye of Mick Gomme's Go Motorsport Management company.


“We’re thrilled to be able to confirm Ben and Micah ahead of the coming season,” said Academy Motorsport’s Managing Director Matt Nicoll-Jones. “Both drivers have a degree of experience behind them which should help them work well together.”

Plenty of water has passed under the metaphorical Aston Martin Racing bridge since the end of the 2018 British GT Championship with so many teams committing to buy and race multiple units of the factory's new 2019 specification Vantage GT3 and GT4 both at home and abroad with order books at record proportions.

One such fan favourite team confirming early to face the challenges of the 2019 British GT Championship season was Andrew Howard's Beechdean AMR squad who would, for the first time since 2016, return to the British GT Championship with both a GT3 and a GT4 car. Joining Howard and Marco Sorensen (who would race together in their brand new turbo charged V8 Vantage GT3) would be the 2018 GT4 Pro-AM runners ups Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher who would race in the teams brand new turbo charged V8 Vantage GT4.


Having spent the last season and a bit with both the Stratton Motorsport and the RJN Nissan squads, Plowman teamed up with TV star Kelvin Fletcher last year aboard a rejuvenated Nissan 370Z GT4 to push hard towards the top step of the GT4 Pro Am class, missing out to the Team Parker Racing Mercedes AMG GT4 of Scott Malvern and Nick Jones almost by virtue of their DNF at the final round at Donington Park.

Fletcher proved himself to be one of the faster and more capable amateur drivers in the GT4 paddock last year and developed into race winning material under the watchful eye and instruction of the former Le Mans 24 LPM2 class winner. "Hungrier than ever" as they have been quoted to say, the duo will look to improve upon their championship outcome this season from the start despite being with a new (but highly experienced team) and in a new car.


Having originally intended to catch up with Plowman at the recent Autosport Show (but missed), he kindly agreed to take some time out of his schedule to give us a little background to what he has been up to since Donington and just how those choices came about.

So - what have you been up to then Martin?

"It’s been a much busier than usual off-season for me. It’s the first time in a long time that my racing program has been confirmed before Christmas so that definitely took some stress away over the Christmas period. On top of working with a new team and preparing for the season I have also started an online motorsport engineering degree and to top it off I’m training to run in my first ever London marathon."
"The engineering degree is probably the hardest as I left school at 16 to pursue my racing career so there are a tonne of mathematics that I haven’t covered and I’m essentially cramming 4 years of study into a 3 month module that covers the maths I need to move forward with the course!"
"As for the marathon training, it’s no more intense than what I would normally do for a pre-season, but naturally it’s hard getting your body in shape for the longer distances. I just have to remember why I’m running and the money I hope to raise for Whizz Kidz. They’re a fantastic charity that I was introduced to last year that do so much for children with disabilities."

IMSA's entry list for next weekends Michelin Pilot Challenge opener from Daytona Motor Speedway confirms the return of a three driver line up to pilot the team's third car entry - their brand new 2019 Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4.
Having all competed together with the team at the same event last year sees the young dirt track racer financier,  Brandon Kidd return to the track with the boss of Stoner Inc. Rob Ecklin Jnr and local Neurosurgeon Ramin Adbolvahabi aboard the all new #97 car for the four hours of the BMW Endurance Challenge.


The excited announcement from the team earlier this month of an additional car means a slight adjustment to the line up from who tested the the normally aspirated V8 Vantage #09 at the Roar before the 24 test two weeks ago - that car resorts to a two driver line up of Mikel Miller and Dale Katechis.

The teams other Stoner Car Care sponsored car remains with Kris Wilson and Gary Ferrera.


The running of the 2019 V8 turbo charged V8 Vantage represents the first competitive customer race for the new car after its inaugural race with a factory based crew at the Gulf 12hrs back in December. It is expected that this new GT4 will be the first of many for the team and for GT racing in the USA as a whole.

With no word regarding its state of homologation it is assumed that the car is racing with the 'blessing' of IMSA (as the series have done so before with new cars) before the car's formal homologation process date in early March.

Track action for the former Continental Tyre Sportscar Challenge Series starts on Thursday 24th January with the race for the provisional 49 GS and TCR car entry later on Friday afternoon.

Photo credits - IMSA / Automatic Racing / AMR / Livery - Andy Blackmore Spotters Guide

Almost three months since TF Sport confirmed the return of Mark Farmer to the British GT paddock for 2019, they have today finally confirm that his new trusted side kick and driving mentor Nicki Thiim shall indeed be there too.

For the Surrey based team, 2018 they had the pleasure of both Danish drivers from the Aston Martin Racing factory team to guide their then two Gentleman drivers (Farmer and Derek Johnston) to great effect with Farmer/Thiim only just missing out on the final GT3 Championship to AMR rival team Optimum and their line up of Flick Haigh and Jonny Adam at the last race of the year.


Since then, Johnston has (apparently) hung up his race suit for the final time and his position within the TF Sport garage swiftly taken up by Jonny Adam and Graham Davidson in one of the two new 2019 specification AMR V8 Vantage GT3's that the team will run this season alongside the two new Vantage GT4's previously announced.

This year will be the second season that Farmer and Thiim will be together and they automatically add themselves to the growing list of potential Championship contenders along with Adam and Davidson with the driving/mentoring services of Marco Sorensen since being scooped up by Andrew Howard and his Beechdean AMR team to form yet another formidable GT3 crew. All factory drivers have again been permitted to support their Partner teams again in 2019 due to the extended calendar of the World Endurance Championship as it finally evolves into a winter series when its next season starts in September.


When we last spoke with Thiim prior to the final round of the 2018 season at Donington Park, he confirmed just how much he had enjoyed the 'distraction'  and great competitive racing spirit of the British GT scene from his then hectic Blancpain and WEC commitments and it will certainly be good to see him back in the UK paddocks both for his driving abilities and his sense of humour.

With over ten brand new Aston Martin Racing Vantages in both GT3 and GT4 form expected to be in pit lane ready for Media Day in early March - 2019 is already looking extremely good (and busy!).


Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey/TF Sport

Florida based Automatic Racing are presently preparing their latest racing acquisition in time for next weekend's opening round of IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge from Daytona Motor Speedway.

Having had two of their normally aspirated Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's at the official Roar before the Twenty-four test at the circuit two weeks ago, we then learned post test that the team will also receive the first customer version of the new turbo charged Vantage GT4 as a third team entry into the four hour BMW Endurance Challenge season opener.


Having just received the first customer chassis from the Banbury workshop, that leaves little time for the team to familiarise themselves with the new car nor the (as yet) unannounced drivers much time to learn its handling characteristics.



Photo credits - Automatic Racing

With just two weeks before the 2019 Bathurst 12Hr event down and over in Australia, Swiss based R-Motorsport have finally confirmed their two car driver line ups in what should be their final outing in the Aston Martin Racing V12 Vantage GT3 as a full works supported race car.

When the team did announce they intention to return to the Mountain in 2019 early last year, they had originally wanted to contest the Pro-Pro and Pro-Am classes with the new 2019 turbo charged V8 Vantage GT3 but unfortunately race Balance of Performance rules demanded a 'year old' car so plans immediately switched back to the venerable V12.


With the team already having at least one of the new iteration of AMR GT3 cars in their possession after its inaugural race at the Gulf 12Hrs in Abu Dhabi last month, what more of a fitting way could there be to see out the tenure of one of the most competitive race and championship winning GT3 machines than by taking them back to one of the most challenging circuits in the world for a full on assault on the GT3 class.


Unsurprisingly, their Class A Pro-Pro entry is made up of three drivers who raced for the Arden Motorsport prepared cars in the last year Blancpain GT Series and some who have gone on to support the team in other one off events like the 24H Series in both Barcelona and Austin, Texas.

For that car the team have today confirmed Jake Dennis, Marvin Kirchhofer and Mathieu Vaxivierre.

In the sister Pro-Am car entry sees Team Principles Florian Kamelger and Andreas Baenziger return with long term customer driver Peter Leemhuis alongside latest team signing Matt Parry.


With the team having skipped the 2018 event, it will be great to see an AMR Vantage GT3 back on track - the first since the ill-fated Miedecke Stone AMR attempt of 2017 that ended so dramatically with their car hard into the wall at turn 1 and with the driver suffering from the effects of carbon monoxide.

R-Motorsport did also attend the 2017 event but only with the AML factory supplied Vantage GT8 and a Vantage GT4 for its then guest drivers.


We don't however, expect this to be the last time that you will see on of R-Motorsport's V12 Vantage race cars out on track somewhere around the world in 2019 either!

Full press release from the team available HERE

Race proceedings begin on January 31st.

Photo credits - R-Motorsport/Bathurst12hr

Health services around the world are always in constant need of the generosity of others to donate blood to help those in time of medical need so it was great to see Omani racer Ahmad Al Harthy use his brand new V8 Vantage GT3 to great effect on a recent promotional campaign back home.

With the assistance of his Oman Racing Team sponsors, Al Harthy has been promoting his country's national campaign to heighten the awareness of blood donation (as well as other promotional campaigns for his sponsors) with the enticement of his latest race car - one that was received from the Aston Martin Racing factory just in time to compete at last months Gulf 12hrs event with AMR factory drivers Jonny Adam and Darren Turner.