Entry lists announces four Aston's for Roar before the 24 at Daytona

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

A somewhat lowly total of just four Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD and GT4’s will be at the Daytona International Speedway next week for the Roar before the 24-official test for both IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge runners.

With attendance at the Roar being compulsory for all IMSA Weathertech Sportscar runners that obviously means that both the Heart of Racing and TF Sport V8 Vantage GTD’s will be at the Florida circuit to take in their first laps of the circuit ahead of the opening round of the 2021 season at the track just the week after at the start of the Rolex 24.

Only last week did the Heart of Racing team confirm their 2021 season driver line up of Ian James and Roman de Angelis return to the #23 AMR, this time being joined at Daytona by both Darren Turner and Ross Gunn.

TF Sport had already declared their driver line up aboard their #97 (Rolex 24 only ) entry of Ben Keating, Charlie Eastwood, Richard Westbrook and Max Root some weeks ago as both teams made use of Aston Martin Racing’s long list of ‘factory’ drivers to the Partner Teams worldwide.

Over in the Michelin Pilot Challenge paddock, just two AMR Vantage GT4’s are expected at the test – a distinct downturn in numbers compared with last year.

Not compulsory in this series, only the #7 Volt Racing AMR of Alan Brynjolfsson and Trent Hindman and a single Automatic Racing AMR from the Stoner Car Care stable are scheduled to be in attendance. The driver roster for the #09 Automatic Racing car is yet unknown and the Notlad Racing AMR has elected not to participate at the test although we do still expect them to appear for the opening four hour race just ahead of the start of the Rolex 24.

Reigning Michelin Pilot Challenge Champions Kohr Motorsport with Nate Stacey and Kyle Marcelli will now not be defending their 2020 crown as Stacey confirmed earlier this week on social media - he will be seeking new challenges elsewhere in (probably) GT3 based machinery.