Out with the old and in with the new over in Asia

Thats very much the case for Japanese Aston Martin Racing Partner team, D'Station Racing AMR having just concluded their national Super GT and Super Taikyu Series commitments to find themselves over in mainland China this weekend for the opening round of the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series.

With one of their trio of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's now having arrived at the Shanghai International Circuit still sporting the technical decals of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series, works begins now for the team and their technical support from the Prodrive factory to ready the car for the start of track proceedings for the opening four hours of racing that begins on Friday with the drivers not to arrive until the day before.


The D'Station Racing AMR car with drivers Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Ross Gunn joins 25 other full season entries and competes in a GT3 grid of 9 cars - all contesting for one of four automatic invitations awarded at the end of the series for next years 24Hours of Le Mans.

Last season we off course had the Red River Sport with TF Sport entry of Bonomy Grimes and Jonny Mowlem with the older normally aspirated V12 Vantage, a pair who have now moved up into the World Endurance Championship with AF Corse in the GTE Am class and it is the same ambition of this Japanese duo to meet and and this time race against Gunn and his #98 AMR crew at the Circuit de La Sarthe next year.


This race comes at the end of an intense period of racing support from some of the guys from Prodrive for its Asian based teams, support that started off at the finale of the Super GT Series last month, saw the end of both the Super Taikyu and China GT Championships over the next two weeks as well as the Macau GP only last weekend. For Gunn, he has also just finished two races at Shanghai, both in China GT and the WEC where he returned home with another GTE Am class podium finish.

This solo AMR car competes in the GT field of nine that comprises of four Ferrari 488's, three BMW M6's and a solo Lamborghini Huracan Eve.


What is interesting is that Gunn was entered into this series (as well as the WEC) as a Silver rank driver as per his ranking last years FIA Driver lists but the new 2020 list (published today) shows him now rated as a Gold!

Photo credits - D'Station / TF Sport / AMR