Light at the end of the tunnel after the earlier news from Aston Martin Racing

What with the financial state of not just the parent Company (Aston Martin Lagonda) back home but also that of the economic situation worldwide during this ongoing pandemic, this news still came as something of a little surprise for us to hear of a total withdrawal rather than just a downscaling of direct operation’s but we can totally understand just why that decision has come about.

If you are to ever stop what you’re doing– it’s always best if you go out on something of a high and for AMR and world GT racing, you cannot get any higher than those racing accolades!

We also recall the words of one famous individual who was reported to have once said “To race or not to Race – that is the question”. For Aston Martin, motor racing has been very much part of their DNA right from their creation and hence, their decision to withdraw themselves but to continue support their existing (and potentially new) customer base going into 2021 only servers to endorse their previously established principles.

We were also privileged to have an in-depth telephone conversation with one ‘more informed’ person than I just before Christmas who kindly filled in some of the gaps between what has been said publicly by Aston Martin Racing and what he knows to be happening but has yet to be announced. 

All we can say from that private conversation is to ‘keep the faith’.

No, sadly we will not be seeing the distinctly yellow V8 Vantage GTE cars of Aston Martin Racing either at Le Mans or at the WEC in general or for the foreseeable future but that’s not to say that we will never be seeing a 2019 specification Vantage GTE race competitively again – it will simply be racing under the banner name of another team moving forward. The same will apply for GT3 and potentially GT4 events worldwide as well as most factory drivers remain within the family.

Who, what and where these offers of customer team support will fall are still many questions yet to be answered by those involved but we have already seen some early fruits of these labours announced for supported Partner team involvement in events such as the Asian Le Mans Series, Rolex 24 at Daytona and British GT.

Whilst it is obviously disappointing not to have the AMR factory team present as a team at the top level of world GT racing, the fact that they will still be there, in the background with other teams that we already know and support can’t be a bad thing.

2021 is still going to be tough for all concerned and involved. Rather than be upset over what has now be ‘lost’, we should be looking forward to what we may now have going forward!

#TeamAMR is after all, a very big family!!