British GT - TF Sport

Unfortunately for us all, TF Sport will not be attending the British GT Championship Media Day at Donington Park today as they will be 'just up the road' doing what they feel they need to be doing up there!

Speaking with Team Principle Tom Ferrier at Snetterton the other week, the delay in receiving their full allocation of the new generation of Aston Martin Racing cars means that they are otherwise behind with their pre-season testing schedule and would prefer to use an available testing date at the Oulton Park circuit (home of the opening round of the Championship) to get their drivers and engineers more up to speed with their new machinery as the Championship's Media Day would otherwise offer them.


Lots of changes of course for TF Sport team within the British GT Championship for 2019 - all except for the return of Gentleman driver Mark Farmer and his 'crazy side kick', AMR factory driver Nicki Thiim. Like previous years, the team returns to the Championship with two GT3 entries for both Farmer and Thiim as well as for new team members Graham Davidson and reigning British GT GT3 Champion co driver Jonny Adam.

Joining these four drivers however will be four young guns, all new to the team and all looking to develop their GT racing careers aboard two new examples of the AMR V8 Vantage GT4 that the tea will be entering into the Championship this year.  Whilst TF Sport already have both Vantage GT3 platforms they still only have one Vantage GT4 car (which arrived last week) with the second not due to arrive in time for todays test (be that at either at Donington or Oulton Park).


Ever since Aston Martin Racing opened their order books for their new Vantage race car in both GT3 and GT4 form last year, they have been inundated with orders to an extent of having over 25 confirmed orders for the GT3 and over 40 confirmed orders for the GT4 from teams due to compete in championships all over the world.

The Prodrive factory is presently continuing with their herculean effort in having all race cars available to those who need them in time for the start of their respective 2019 seasons and being a team that can turn around a brand new Vantage GTE from scratch in only a few days - succeed they will!


Fortunately for us, we met up with the team as they tested at Snetterton the other week where we found Adam/Davidson were getting in some significant mileage together with the GT3 car that they will actually compete in and where Farmers new GT3 car was delivered to the team ready in time for him to test for the first time at Paul Ricard. Young guns Tom Canning/Rory Collingbourne and Patrick Kibble/Josh Price respectively were also getting in their first significant runs with the car (albeit the development car) having only had a few laps in the car each at the AMR appraisal day at Oulton Park late last year.



Missing the event entirely will be Nick Thiim who is presently in Florida preparing himself for the World Endurance Championship's Sebring Test day later this week ahead of the 1000Km's of Sebring in the factory Vantage GTE a week later.

Whilst it will be our loss I not seeing these guys at Donington today , the work being undertaken by the team elsewhere will hopefully leave them all in a better position in the preparation stakes once the green flag falls at the opening round at Oulton Park in April. Testing at Donington can wait for a later date.


At the time of writing this piece, the team have yet to confirm any livery details for any of its four new cars so that is something at least to look forward to at Oulton Park in April.