Another busy weekend of AMR racing at opposing sides of the world

Five Aston Martin Racing cars compete this weekend at two tracks on opposite sides and hemispheres of the world making for a fourteen hour time difference for us watching proceedings from the UK.

Japanese team, D'Station Racing AMR compete in the final round of their Asian Le Mans Series challenge from the Chang Buriram International Circuit in Thailand whilst the AMR factory team and their three GTE cars, alongside TF Sport compete in in the fifth round of the World Endurance Championship over at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.


D'Station have already completed their Qualifying for Sundays final four hour race, with Tomonobu Fujii qualifying the green #77 AMR Vantage GT3 in P4 ahead of a race that they must really win to stand any chance of snatching the Class title and that coveted automatic invitation to the Le Mans 24hr in a GTE Am car.

Fujii joins team co-owner Satoshi Hoshino and series debutant Tom Gamble (in place of Ross Gunn who is racing at CoTA) for the race that begins at 12:15hrs local - thats an eye watering 04:15hrs GMT.


Over in Texas, the four Vantage GTE cars have just completed their second Free Practice session of what is unusually a compressed race weekend featuring track sessions over just Saturday and Sunday.

Thankfully the rains of earlier this week have now passed the circuit by although track and air temperatures have remained low and has caused some difficulties with getting the tyres up to temperature and operating as expected around a circuit that has only recently been mostly resurfaced.


During FP1, the #97 Pro crew of Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn headed their six car field with a lap time of 2:01:838 and that was reciprocated by the #95 crew of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim during FP2 with a slightly faster time - only missing out on the top slot at the very last moment of the red flagged shortened session despite technical issues of their own that saw Sorensen stop out on track earlier in the session.

In the eleven strong GTE Am class, the #98 AMR prepared car welcomed back Paul Dalla Lana after his skiing injury induced absence at the Rolex 24 with he, Ross Gunn and Darren Turner being the stronger of the two GTE Am Astons as Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Jonny Adam have appeared to be struggling for pace and have had to chase the optimum setup in these opening session just ahead of Qualifying later tonight and despite being lighter than their #98 cousins.


Qualifying starts at 17:40hrs local (23:40hrs GMT) with the start to the Lone Star Le Mans 6hr race being waved off at midday on Sunday local (18:00Hrs GMT).

Photo credits - AMR / WEC / TF Sport