The opening sessions of the 2019 FIA Motorsport Games kicked off this afternoon under the gloomy skies of Rome as the cars drove through the streets of Rome ahead of this evenings opening ceremony.

Amongst the six categories of racing feature the twenty two GT Cars, amongst them two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's from TF Sport and Optimum Motorsport racing this time under the country names of both Turkey and Kuwait respectively.


Reigning Champions Salih Yoluc and Ayhancan Guven have this year moved across from the Mercedes AMG GT3 to the similar engined #90 AMR Vantage GT3 of TF Sport, the team who presently supports most of Yoluc's international racing programmes.

They are joined by new recruits into both the event and the V8 Vantage GT3 of Kuwaii drivers Khaled Al Mudhaf and Zaid Ashkanani in the aptly numbered #007 Optimum car for the all Bronze/Silver driving partnerships.


Seeing some extraordinary photos today of AMR race cars queuing up with local people going about their normal business, waiting at traffic lights was incredible although this evenings heavy rain put a large 'dampener' upon proceedings.

First track action for the GT cars at the nearby Vallelunga circuit is tomorrow with two Free Practice sessions ahead of Qualifying and the first hour long race on Saturday before Sunday sees two further one hour races.


Further information on entries, timetables and TV coverage can be found HERE

Photo credits - FIA / TF Sport / Optimum

Yesterday saw the reveal of the first Provisional entry list ahead the ninth edition of the Gulf 12Hr from the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in mid December, a list that included just two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's from both the Optimum Motorsport and Generation AMR SuperRacing teams.

Despite our own best efforts to secure both teams with a suitably qualified driver line up, it appears that the good old 'who's already in my mobile phone directory' approach has led to certainly one team completing their trio of drivers with the other just waiting for the contractural T&C's to clear before revealing theirs.


What we can say is that for the David Appleby Engineering prepared AMR car, 2019 shall see the return of their former winning trio of James Holder, Matthew George and Steve Tandy regroup in to Holder's new GT4 car to kind of defend their (then) GTX crown that they won back in 2017 but were unable to defend the year later.

What is different of course this year is that 2017 was within the older, normally aspirated Vantage whilst this year will be with the car turbo charged era of race car that internationally debuted at this event last year in both GT3 and GT4 form. Whilst the car was still in developmental form back then the car has gone on to prove its worth in many series around the world including a British GT GT4 Championship win for Tom Canning who drove the car at the Gulf 12Hr back in 2018.


The other AMR entry is another GT4 car from Optimum Motorsport. Chatting without team boss Shaun Goff at the final round of the GT Cup Championship at Snetterton last weekend he explained that there was an original intention of entering a GT3 car for December's event but commitments elsewhere with the proposed drivers meant that that was no longer possible so just a single GT4 was reverted to for a driver line up as then not yet fully confirmed.


This years event starts on track with the first Free Practice session on Thursday 12th December before further Free Practice and Qualifying sessions on Friday ahead of the start of Part to the twelve hour race at 09:00hrs (local) and running for six hours ahead of a short break and then resumption to the final six hours at 18:00hrs (local).

Photo credits - Gulf 12Hr / DAE

With all three works entered Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE's presently stored within various shipping containers somewhere between Japan and China, it would have otherwise been a difficult proposition to go tyre testing this week in Portimao, Portugal without the benefit of an expensive spare GTE chassis being available.

For the new AMR Vantage however, any GT3 platform can of course be easily be converted into a full GTE variant in just a matter of a few hours work within the garage and that is what has happened this week to the #99 Beechdean AMR GT3 that Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn raced to P2 in the final round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup on Sunday morning being transformed post race into a full GTE test bed for both Row Gunn and Maxime Martin to go tyre testing today and tomorrow.


Whilst Gunn was obviously already available at the circuit for the start of testing today, Martin arrived in Portugal late last night following his exploits in last weekends Citroen C1 24hr event at Spa Francorchamps.

Whilst the three factory entered Vantage GTE's were built at the Prodrive factory as full GTE's, (cars which carry a 15A prefix to the chassis number), the TF Sport car carries the chassis number of a converted GT3 chassis (as it carries a 16A prefix) that has been subsequently converted over to GTE and is a factor that is drawing many of AMR's new customers towards the platform.

The next round off the World Endurance Championship is in Shanghai in little under two weeks time.

Update


This two day tyre test has come just at a time when the WEC confirmed a revised Balance of Performance criteria ahead of the next round for the GTE Pro cars plus a continuation of their new 'success penalty' for the GTE Am Class cars after the results of the last round in Fuji.

In GTE Pro the adjustment is fortunately minimal for Aston Martin Racing - a one litre reduction in fuel capacity to 98 litres for the #95 and #97 cars whilst the changes in GTE Am are a little more profound. Not only do the #98 and #90 TF Sport cars also have the one litre reduction in fuel capacity to their new 95 litre level but sees the first split in base weights between the two cars following TF Sports class win in Japan.

For next months third round from Shanghai in China, the #90 TF Sport will now be be running 15kg heavier than the #98 sister car from the AMR stable whilst the class leading #83 AF Corse Ferrari has seen the most weight increase compared to their declared 'base weight' whilst others at the lower end of the table now have a car lighter than their respective declared base weight.

We think that this is where events and performances on track will start getting interesting!!

Photo credits - LMC / Social media

Last Saturday saw the final round of the German Sports clubs VLN Series from the Nordschliefe with over one hundred and sixty cars again taking part in the final four hour race of the season.

Joining them were two cars from the Aston Martin Racing stable with Partner Team Garage 59 borrowing a Vantage GT4 from the neighbouring AMR Performance Centre and with German based Prosport Performance seeing out their final race with one of their AMR GT4's, both of which (and their two GT3's are now for sale).


For the Garage 59 pairing of Chris Goodwin and Alex West, this was a last chance for them to get in some final seat time ahead of their next event of the year down in Kyalami, South Africa where they will be racing their AMR Vantage GT3 in the final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge Series.

Both Vantage Gt4's ran in differing classes to one another with the #156 AMR Performance Centre car again running in the SP8T Class  (a class that allows small adjustments) as opposed to the #173 Prosport performances SP10 class for 'true' GT4 cars.


Prosport were again running their customer team of Alex Mies and Mike David-Ortmann who had swapped over to the teams AMR Vantage GT4 at the final round of the German ADAC GT4 Germany race from the Nurburgring.

Running to an unspecified agenda - beyond that of just finishing the race, both did finish with the #156 car in P6 overall in SP8T and teh #173 in P5 in SP10.


For both Goodwin and West, they will be joining their own resident Pro driver Come Ledogar in South Africa in just under three weeks time with their #188 Vantage GT3 will make up a field of three Aston Martins (along side two from R-Motorsport) in the expected grid of thirty cars.

Photo credits - Frozenspeed / VLN / Blancpain GT

Some more good racing experience was gained this weekend by Spanish based Virage Group team having entered a sole Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 into last weekends European Le Mans Series support programme for their final round of the season racing at Portimao in Portugal.

Racing in their #94 car was the duo of CO Jones and Freddie Hunt who joined forces together for the first time in the SRO sanctioned GT4 South European Series.


Racing as the sole Am class car in the GT4 grid, the duo Qualified in P3 overall for Race 1 and in P5 for race 2 with two races being remarkably different to one another over both Saturday and Sunday evening.

Whereas Saturdays race was strictly GT4, Sundays race enjoyed the company of other TCR and tin top race cars from the Iberia TCR formula which increased the grid from just eleven GT4's to twenty two starters for that fifty minute race in a race that ended in the dark!


Finishing obviously first in class each time, the #94 crew finished P6 overall in both races and that was after having a penalty applied for exceeding track limits in race 1 where the final position could have been an overall race podium.

Their final race of the season is at the end of next month in Estoril

Photo credits - GT4 South

Having signed up Optimum Motorsport to hire him one of their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's for the final meeting of the 2019 GT Cup Championship, businessman David Holloway was left quietly impressed after he and co-driver Piers Johnson were rewarded with a pair of class podium finishes by the end of the weekend.

Having tested the car at Snetterton (then under the watchful eye of Aston Martin Racing driver Ross Gunn) only the week before, all that that data kind of 'went of out the window' after a wet and blustery test day on Friday and then the same on the first day of the two day meeting on Saturday.

Saturdays first race started potentially promising for the #15 Optimum car of Holloway with a Qualifying position of P2 in class with the #72 Whitebridge car for the solo Chris Murphy just behind in P4.


At some point during that wet 25 minute race, an incident/accident affected the #15 car as it finished four laps off the lead lap plus sadly didn't make an appearance at all for the second race of the day. That happily wasn't the case for theMurphy car as he notched up a P3 and P4 in class by the end of the first day for the outgoing Overall and GTH Class Champion.

Sunday was a different affair for the meeting and the #15 with bright autumnal sunshine greeting the now black carbon bonneted AMR Vantage GT4 for the final 25 and 50 minute races of the season.

Another quick time for Holloway in Qualifying gave him a P3 starting slot in class whilst a no time for Murphy left him at the rear of the pack. With a better day came better driving for Holloway who scooped his first piece of silverware of the weekend with a P3 finish whilst Murphy would finish that race in P6


The final 50 minute (Pit stop) race of the year was a similar affair with the two AMR's starting P12 and P14 overall for the new turbo charged and normally aspirated V8's respectively. An errant Lotus Evora losing a wheel and coming to rest half on/half off the track just after the Bomb hole left Race Control no option but to red flag the race with just fiver minutes remaining but that at least gave the AMR's a P2/P3 finish with Murphy just pipping the #15 car to the higher step.


A good weekend for Holloway and Johnson who will hopefully now go away to consider their next move over the winter months before deciding upon their preferred race platform for 2020. Whilst it was announced at the Autosport Show in January that Holloway was going to buy a new Vantage GT4, we understand that it was his prior business engagements that stopped that from taking place over the summer and despite earlier contact between the two parties. Now that he has experienced what the car can do maybe we can expect one to be entered by him somewhere next season?

Again, it shows just how driver friendly the new Vantage GT4 is to drive.

Going into last weekends sixth and final round of the 2019 Michelin Le Mans Cup Series sadly had no ultimate Championship possibilities for Beechdean AMR but there was still the need to score well in order to secure there then present third place in the GT3 table.

With both the #8 Kessel Racing and the #71 Luzich Racing Ferrari 488's being able to dominate the season between them, it was always the Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn who would be pushing them all the way, trying to get themselves onto the top step of the class podium that had so far evaded them.


Despite no race wins and only a P2 most recently at previous round at Spa Francorchamps to shout about, it was most bizarre to see that the AMR Vantage had been given a weight increase (+10kg) as part of their revised Balance of Performance settings going in to the final round in Portimao, Portugal yet all the other chassis remained untouched, just like they had been all season.

None the less, the team set about their preparatory business in the usual format with lap times increasing over the available sessions before Howard Qualified the car P6 in class after having had a faster lap time deleted for track limits.

With the final two hour race starting in the morning of Sunday (rather than on the Saturday afternoon after Qualifying), the track was not up to its expected temperature value with gloomy clouds also covering the Portimao skyline potentially creating a few tyres issues between them.


From a GT3 Championship perspective, things quickly became interesting after the title challenging and pole setting Luzich Ferrari got tagged by an LMP3 to suffer both a spin and a puncture on only the first lap around the 4.6km circuit. What that first lap also did was to somehow create an event where the pole car (#71 Luzich) dropped to last but the then last placed car at the start - the #8 Kessel Racing car moved up to the front of the pack by the end of the second lap!

For Beechdean, Howard had also capitalised on the early confusion to move up to P4 in the opening minutes.

With the race flow broken by a brief Full Course Yellow for a stricken LMP3, things became slightly easier for the #99 car after the #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari put themselves into the gravel meaning that they would then loose a significant of time making it extremely unlikely that they could ever surpass the Beechdean car in the Championship stakes. That also moved the #99 car up into P3 in class just before the hour but also saw a recovering Luzich car chasing up fast from behind.


Pitting just over Howards minimum stint time of 55 minutes, Gunn would exit pit lane and maintain a P3 position on track as the pit stop cycle came to an end but there was clearly no way he was going to settle for the lowest step on the podium as he chased down the SPS Performance Mercedes AMG ahead.

Within twenty minutes of getting in the car Gunn was soon battling for P2 in class, progress that was slightly delayed however with the untimely arrival of an LMP3 on the scene but within a lap the job was done and the #99 car was up to P2.

With just over fifteen minutes remaining Gunn soon hunted down the blue liveried #8 Kessel Racing Ferrari - giving them a massive ultimatum of either fighting them for position (and risk their Championship position) or simply let them pass! That would have made for a brilliant GT3 finale had it not been for the arrival of two more LMP3's on scene plus a late FCY for debris on track as that only left for about six minutes of racing at the end. Sadly for Gunn, the compromised routes into and out of the corners caused by the passing LMP3's lost him ground to the #8 car and Howard and Gunn would have to settle for another P2 finish in the last race of the season.

That result saw the Beechdean AMR team extend their position in the GT3 to secure third place by eleven points to their nearest rival, still fifty points and an automatic invitation to the 2020 24Hours of Le Mans down to the Kessel crew but still, it looked like 'the boss' enjoyed his first full season out in his new AMR Vantage GT3.


Hopefully, like their recent Press Release suggested - there may well be more to come from these boys in Europe next season?

Photo credits - Beechdean / LMC

D'station Racing has confirmed to enter Asian Le Mans Series for 2019-2020 with the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 starting in the end of November.

The driver line-up is team owner and Gentleman Driver Satoshi Hoshino, Aston Martin Racing WEC driver Ross Gunn and Tomonobu Fujii from their own SuperGT undertakings with another AMR Vantage GT3. D'station Racing will compete all four races of the series teamed up with an engineer and a mechanic from Aston Martin Racing.


The target is to get an entry for 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the team is considering other WEC races like they did last time out in the Championship at Fuji where they ran in a Dempsey Proton Porsche.


The four round series starts in Shanghai at the end of November - just a couple of weeks after the WEC visit there for their third round of their new winter season before progressing to Australia, Malaysia and Thailand by the end of February 2020.

Source material - D'Station Racing AMR

With most National, European and International race Series and Championships already at or very close to their conclusion for the 2019 season there seems little to look forward to over the winter months (with the exception of one or two bespoke stand alone racing events of course), but at least we still have the outcome of two driver talent selection processes to be decided.

Most recently and following the process ending track sessions of last week at Silverstone for the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year where the very capable young lady race car driver Jamie Chadwick makes up one quarter the four candidate driver list of possibilities for the top UK accolade.


Joining three other single seater specialists, Chadwick (already a GT4 and single seater Champion) have all been measured behind the scenes on simulators, had their physical and mental fitness assessed before finally making it out on track last week in machinery that included a Garage 59 supplied Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 for the ultimate driving comparison.

Hopefully, the guidance and instruction from her former driver coach Jonny Adam at Snetterton last week came in handy for her over the two day assessment ahead of the final reveal at the annual Autosport Awards night in early December.

We wish her well.


Then of course we have Aston Martin Racing's own 2019 Driver Academy that (we are told) should be coming to some kind on conclusion within the next few weeks.

Relaunched for 2019 for any driver between the ages of 17 and 25 and driving for any Aston Martin Racing Partner or Customer team this year saw a mighty twenty three driver entry confirmed by the team at the start of the year.

Many were AMR convertees, turning to GT racing for the first time as the next stepping stone in their motor racing ladder career path and mainly competing in Europe although a few did figure in series further afield in both China and the USA.


With what we have learned from the last winner of a similar process in 2015 (Ross Gunn) was that race results were not the sole solution to the questions being posed by the team as (like above) mental and physical abilities also came into play alongside their media relations capabilities as well as technical and engineering awareness.

What is clear is that most benefitted in some way from this process, having the likes of Andrew Watson, Charlie Eastwood, Ross Gunn, Jonny Adam, Maxime Martin, Darren Turner all on hand at some point in the process to help these young drivers develop.


There were also a few drivers from the Academy process who went on to be crowned as winners at the end of their respective seasons - these include Ollie Wilkinson who won the British GT Championship GT3 Silver Cup (and was the only candidate to drive a GT3), Tom Canning and Ash Hand who won the British GT GT4 Championship together with TF Sport and Clement Seyler who secured both the GT4 European Series Am Class title (with Pascal Bachmann) as well as the Sean Edwards Foundation Young Driver of the Year Award.

As with any season, there was some degree of 'natural wastage' as a few drivers became victims to both circumstance and the hugely competitive nature that is modern motor racing as more than five would not make it to the end of the season in the team/car in which they started.


The candidates

Patrick Kibble (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Tom Canning (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Ash Hand (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Josh Price (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Clement Seyler (LUX) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Julien Darras (F) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jamie Vandenbalck (BEL) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Matthew Cowley (UK) Academy GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Alex Toth-Jones (UK) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Micah Stanley (MON) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Ben Hurst (CAN) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Tom Wood (UK) Academy GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Connor O’Brien (UK) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Jack Butel (UK) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Patrick Matthiesen (DEN) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Ollie Wilkinson (UK) Optimum British GT/GT Open Vantage GT3
Matthew George (UK) Generation AMR GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Akhil Rabindra (IND) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jeremie Lesoudier (F) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Florian Thoma (CH) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
David Griessner (A) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jeremy Sarhy (F) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Yves Volte (GER) BSEM China GT

Having originally scribed themselves down for a GT4 entry into next months round of the Creventic 24H Series from the Circuit of the Americas and despite multiple enquires and driver tests, Shaun Goff and his Optimum Motorsport team have elected to 'keeping it local' going into the final weeks of the UK motorsport scene with a single car entry for the finale of the GT Cup Series at Snetterton this weekend.

Seen testing at the circuit with  their new customer pair of drivers in one of the two available Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's last week, today has seen the team confirm their entry into this weekends meeting for drivers David Holloway and Piers Johnson.

Originally announcing the impending acquisition of a new AMR Vantage GT4 for a mid season delivery at this years Autosport Show, the pair stuck with their Century Motorsport prepared Ginetta G55for the race weekends that they were available for in the Series and it was their intention for Century to carry on preparing their new AMR chassis once it arrived.


Clearly, between then and now something changed but it is still great to see this Aston Martin fanatical Gentleman driver stick with his dream of racing a marque that he drives very happily on the roads day to day with this announcement.

“David has been looking at replacing his Ginetta to a new generation GT4 this year,” Piers explained. “He’s tested a number of the cars available during the year and with such a great brand in Aston Martin, has decided to enter the last round of GT Cup this season.

“We tested with Optimum Motorsport last week, the weather was very kind and was dry for the majority of the day,” he continued. “The car is very nice to drive, very different from our previous, being a lot heavier, but has more power. The day went very well, getting some mileage under our belts and getting quicker on each run.

The final round of the 2019 VLN Series takes place this weekend from the infamous Nordschleife circuit with this time a pair of new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's seeing out the season.

Having narrowly missed out on the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup Am Class title together in their Garage 59 AMR Vantage GT3 sees both Alex West and Chris Goodwin race together (? for the first time at this venue we want to say?) in one of the green liveried AMR Performance Centres GT4's (again querying fo the first time for West) for the final four hours of racing around the near twenty-six kilometre circuit in the #156 car that both Martin and Alex Brundle shared to a class podium in VLN7.



Whilst Goodwin has raced at the circuit many times, most notably of late in the new Vantage GT4 at the ADAC Total N24 event earlier this year when he shared the then #36 car with Darren Turner and Christian Gebhardt, West only qualified for his full VLN Permit earlier this year when he shared the normally aspirated AMR Performance Centre Vantage GT4 with Martin Brundle.

Joining them is a customer entry for the #173 Prosport Performance team are drivers Alex Mies, Mike David Ortmann and Christoph Brauer. A bit of a strange entry this, considering the apparent hostility showed by the Prosport team owner towards AMR in an interview for a German website after his teams own difficult transition over to the the new iteration of Vantage race car in both ADAC GT Masters, ADAC GT4 Germany as well as other series - a fall out that has left all four cars up for sale. The first two drivers named did race together aboard one of their GT4 cars at the penultimate round of the ADAC series at the Nurburgring with great effect so it will be interesting to see if they stay loyal to the team or the brand in the new season.


As usual with all VLN events, private practice is available on the Friday before Qualifying on Saturday morning ahead of a noon start (local) for the four hour race.

Photo credits - Frozenspeed / Garage 59 / Prosport

A belated congratulations to all the drivers and teams who finally picked up their 2019 season Championship prizes at the annual SRO Awards night, this time held in Las Vegas at the weekend.

Designed to coincide with the finale of the SRO's latest regional acquisition, all the winning drivers and teams from the greater SRO Series umbrella were invited over to meet in the Grand Ballroom of the plush Bellagio Hotel in central Las Vegas for a extra-ordinary presentation night


For the many Aston Martin Racing customer and Partner teams, the winners of course included the likes of TF Sport, Beechdean and Optimum Motorsport from the British GT Championship, TF Sport again in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup and the smaller Street Art Racing team from the GT4 European Series.


Championship prizes for Graham Davidson, Jonny Adam, Tom Canning, Ash Hand, Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood, Ahmad Al Harthy, Ollie Wilkinson, Bradley Ellis, Martin Plowman, Kelvin Fletcher, Pascal Bachman and Clement Seyler were all there on site to collect their respective accolades but then there were more awards to be won for two special race drivers at different positions in their racing careers.


AMR factory driver Jonny Adam, the winner of four British GT Championships was also awarded the Allan Simonsen Trophy Award from the Championship whilst the young convertee to GT racing, Clement Seyler was awarded the Sean Edwards Foundation Award for Young Driver of the Year - two significant awards Ito reflect some truly magnificent achievements between the pair of them.


Congratulations to you all, thank you for choosing the sport and the cars that we love and (hopefully) see you back in 2020 to defend your crowns!

Photo credits - Teams/drivers and SRO

Aston Martin Racing works driver Maxime Martin is to launch his own GT racing team, running a pair of Aston Martin Vantage GT4s. The Martin Racing Team, which will be based near Charleroi Airport in Brussels, Belgium, plans to field the cars in the 2020 European GT4 and ADAC GT4 Championships.

For Martin, who alongside #97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE co-driver Alex Lynn (GB), lies fourth in the FIA World Endurance Championship GTE championship standings thanks to third places at Silverstone (GB) and Fuji (J), this is the realisation of a long-held ambition.

"I have been thinking about starting my own team for a while," said Martin. "I am nowhere near finished with my own driving career, but I wanted to begin a venture that can grow into the future and I wanted to be a part of something that allowed me to give back to the sport I’ve been involved with my entire life.


“GT racing, and in particular GT4, has become incredibly popular with young drivers coming into the sport, as well as enthusiastic gentleman racers. Myself and my partner Thomas Matton (a senior mechanic in the BMW DTM programme), have the experience to develop this talent through this team and we have big ambitions for the future.”

Martin said that running two Vantage GT4s was the obvious choice for his new team, but added that they were also the best option on the market: “Being part of the factory programme made it a common sense decision to race the Vantages,” said Martin, “I have driven and contributed to the development of the customer car, so I understand it well. But I also think that the Vantage GT4 is the among the best. It really is a proper racing car and Aston Martin is a massive brand that carries a lot of interest, so it is the perfect car to start with.”

Martin and Matton, who have worked together for 11 years across a range of motorsport programmes, will head up the team in partnership and intend to expand the operation to include VLN and Creventic programmes once the initial plan has been established successfully.


The Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and GT4 customer programme has proved a resounding success in its first year with both iterations of the car claiming six British GT championship titles between them. Moreover, the Vantage GT3 car won the Blancpain GT Endurance Series Endurance Cup Pro-Am title and the same class in the Total Spa 24 Hours race. More than 40 Vantage GT4s, which have claimed multiple victories across various European-based series, have been delivered to customers to date with several more scheduled before the end of 2019.

“We commend Max for taking the brave and committed step to launch his own racing team and of course we wish him well,” said Aston Martin Racing President, David King. “As one of the fastest and most experienced GT drivers in the world, we’re also glad that he will continue to race with us in the FIA WEC! That he has chosen to begin life as a team owner with Aston Martin is an advocation of the exceptional level of performance the Vantage has displayed across multiple categories around the world in its first year. That it is still early in its lifecycle as a customer racing car, and yet so popular with customers, bodes well for the future of Aston Martin Racing.”

Source material - AMR