Bits and pieces from this week for #TeamAMR

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Using the powers of elimination over what has or has not been disclosed already and that both events take place over the same weekend yet hundreds of miles apart - it appears that Beechdean AMR have elected to participate in the Barcelona round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup series over that of the next round of the British GT Championship from Spa over the weekend of the 19/20th July.

With the Le Mans Cup first to publish their entry list today of 29 cars for the fourth round out of six for the season from the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, the appearance of the #99 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn on that list kind of seals the fate that the colourful red, white and blue car will not be racing at the fifth round of the British GT Championship on their annual excursion to Belgium after all?

Or of course, they could be doing both in which case that makes for an incredibly busy weekend of motorsport plus an overnight 800 mile drive between circuits to boot but .............!?!?

The round at Barcelona follows on from the two races at the Road to Le Mans from the Circuit de La Sarthe where the #99 crew finished with a DNF in Race 1 (having been taken out of the race by a chasing competitor for position on the final lap) and a P2 podium position in race 2. As a result of that, the team presently lie P4 in the GT3 class table - forty points behind the leading crew but with over fifty points still available from the remaining two races.

Missing from this weekends penultimate round of the GT4 European Series from Zandvoort in the Netherlands sees the Generation AMR SuperRacing team to resurface again at the third round of the sister GT4 South European Series also from the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona over the weekend of 30th Aug/1st September.

Having 'christened' their new 2019 specification AMR Vantage GT4 at the British GT Championship round at Silverstone and the GT4 European Series round at Misano over the last four weeks, the team now takes a temporary step back with its AMR racing programme for drivers Matt George and James Holder.

“We will be racing at Barcelona to evaluate the series for next season. We are competing in the GT4 European Series this season, but we started with an old car, so we are not in the title hunt. We're weighting our options for 2020. Last year we were very successful on this circuit in the Championnat de France FFSA GT – GT4 France weekend. It is a good place to get to grips with the championship as we already have a good acknowledge of the car and the track” commented George.

The team do have a tendency to pick and choose race venues across series in order of preference for what Bronze driver Holder gets out of his expenditure in motor racing and this season is no different.

Finally, and if you didn't already know is that Optimum Motorsports Ollie Wilkinson returns to the International GT Open Series this weekend with his AMR V8 Vantage GT3 for their fourth round of the season from the Red Bull Ring in Austria.

Having skipped the series previous round from Spa Francorchamps to concentrate on their Silver Cup efforts within the British GT Championship, the young driver from Leeds pairs up with his third co-driver/coach of the year so in the form of AMR factory driver Jonny Adam.

Having started with Bradley Ellis in round 1 before swapping to Darren Turner for round 2, the team are making every effort to get him differing racing experiences from different drivers within his two chosen series in the 2019 season both at home in the BGT and in Europe with the GT Open.

The team have already tested at the Red Bull Ring this year (under the watchful eye of Turner) so it is hopeful that the extremely successful driver coach in Mr Adam will form into a pair of great results at the weekend to emulate or better the podium success that he and Turner enjoyed at Hockenheim.

UPDATE.

One race this weekend that we did overlook is the return of the VLN Series to the Nordschleife and Nurburgring GP circuit having concluded their short intermission that covers the running of the ADAC Total 24H event a few weeks ago.

Having already obtained their full Nordschleife Permit earlier this year, the fourth running of the VLN Series sees Garage 59 co-owner and Blancpain GT Racer Alex West return to the infamous Green Hell track for some more laps despite having spent most of the week there with a Ferrari Clienti event their in an FXXK hypercar.

This weekend, he returns with something a little slower as he rejoins the #150 AMR Performance Centre support Aston Martin Vantage GT4 that runs in the SP8 class. He is joined for this four hour race by Erik Manning.