How far these two have come since ............

Beaten to the simple point made yesterday by Beechdean AMR team Principle Andrew Howard, a point one we feel is very much worth repeating is the contributory factors that his Beechdean AMR team offered to two young, very talented individuals still in the early days of their careers as they looked to progress and who have now hit the news headlines for the very best of reasons this week.

Catching a few words with Andrew Howard at the penultimate round of the British GT Championship from Brands Hatch last weekend he reminded us about how his team was also about the promotion and development of young driving talent - giving them the much needed boost into their racing careers and not just a bit of 'fun' for himself.


That of course started off in 2014 when Beechdean AMR offered seats in their first Vantage GT4 for young drivers Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings who later went on to secured the British GT GT4 crown as the first time of asking. That was replicated the very next year when two GT novices - Ross Gunn and Jamie Chadwick stepped up to the plate to defend the team's crown and defend it they did taking the GT4 title at Snetterton with one meeting in hand.

With Gunn also winning the coveted Aston Martin Racing Academy selection process that year and an AMR works contract to boot, their racing careers then on took on very different paths to one another but today both now find themselves heading very much towards the top of their chosen pathways in the world of motorsport.


Whilst Gunn remained within the GT family, racing in Europe and China for many AMR customer teams including Beechdean AMR in both the European Le Mans Series, Le Mans 24 and most recently the Michelin Le Mans Cup, this weeks news of his selection to partner long term AMR customer Paul Dalla Lana together with works driver Darren Turner in this years coming World Endurance Championship is simply a just reward for all his efforts since 2014.

With some periods during his tenure at AMR barren to any obvious full season racing activity we must remember his contribution made to the development of the new 2019 Vantage platform in all three formats including winning the AMR Festival race in the GT3 iteration in its first international viewing at Le Mans last year.


Chadwick meanwhile elected to go the single seater route to learn more about aerodynamics in her race craft and those endeavours were ultimately rewarded last weekend with her winning the inaugural season of the W-Series. Not only that but she has gone on to be selected to join the Williams F1 Driver Academy but has also kept her hand in with GT racing by winning the SP8T class in this years ADAC Total 24H race earlier this year in the new Vantage GT4 making her truly a young lady with pure racing talent that Aston Martin are obviously also keen to retain and nurture


Whatever happens with these two guys over the next few years only time will tell but for Beechdean AMR we can be assured (as Howard told us at Brands) is that the team will be back racing somewhere in something again for 2020 and is already looking for new young potentials that they can also help move forward. That is one reason why Howard has recruited the young Frenchman Valentin Hasse Clot to help him see out the end of the 2019 British GT Championship after former co-driver Marco Sorensen had a sizeable accident at the Le Mans 24 and their championship potentials within British GT proved needing such a co-driver as unnecessary! Maybe that will be the teams GT3 pairing for 2020 already?


If you're looking for that extra step up then you'll be foolhardy to overlook Beechdean AMR as clearly history does repeat itself!

It seems that Beechdean doesn't just make good ice cream ............!!!

Photo credits - W-Series / AMR / Beechdean / British GT