This weeks AMR action from around the world

For this weekend, it looks like we will have Aston Martin Racing Customer and Partner team teams racing as far afield as the USA, through Europe and over to Japan again with both the Vantage GT3 and GT4 platforms in action.

Over at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship have another one of their short sprint GTLM/GTD only races with the 105-minute Motul Synthetic Grand Prix this Saturday. With just twenty cars showing as being entered into this weekend’s calendar revised event, we again have the #23 Heart of Racing V8 Vantage GTD of Roman de Angelis and Ian James amongst them, all of whom will be looking to go at least one better than their P4 finish last time out at Mid-Ohio.

They will surely be taking inspiration from their sister #52 car over in New Zealand that again secured a P1 finish at the second round of the South Island Endurance Series for their ‘ex’ IMSA racer Alex Riberas and Kiwi Drift Champion Darren Kelly.

Round to Brands Hatch in the UK and we have the fourth round of five of the GT Cup Championship where we should have three AMR Vantage GT4’s of both 2016 and 2019 versions racing amongst the twenty-nine, multi-class entered grid.

Long term Champoionship entries, Whitebridge Motorsport return with their older, normally aspirated  specification of the Vantage GT4 for both Chris Murphy and Steve Birt whilst the newer and beautifully liveried turbo charged #38 car from the Newbridge Motorsport team will again be there for drivers Matt Topham and Alex Toth-Jones with all three competing within the GTH Class.

Over and down a bit in Europe sees the Creventic 24H Series run their first Coppa Florio 12Hour event competing at the Autodromo di Pergusa in Sicily.

Now featuring as the penultimate round of the 24H Series Europe round of events, the twenty four runners should include the #401 AMR Vantage GT4 from the PROsport Racing team for customer drivers Rodrique Gillion, Nico Verdonck and Tim Heeren.

With the race equally split over both Saturday and Sunday, track action should begin there tomorrow with the first test sessions.

Finally and over in Japan, we have the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series hold their second round of the season with two – three hour races being held around the Sportsland Sugo circuit. There, we expect local team D’Station Racing AMR to again enter both their #777 Vantage GT3 for drivers Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Tsubasa Kondo as well as their new #47 Vantage GT4 for drivers Tatsuya Hoshino, Kenji Hama, Takuro Shinohara and Max Orido.

At the opening round of the season at Fuji Speedway last month, the #777 incurred kerb inflicted damage to the rear drivetrain whilst comfortably leading the 24-hour race in the rain but despite the best efforts of the team, the car was eventually retired leaving all hope with their new GT4 crew. With gritted determination, they went on to safely deliver a P3 finish in class at the end of their first race together with the team!

Fingers crossed for them all!!

Photo credits – IMSA / HoRT / GT Cup / Newbridge / 24H Series / D’Station Racing