Amongst all the good news - a bitter pill to swallow as Garage 59 change tack for 2022

Thursday, December 23, 2021

As we approach the Festive Holidays and the final week of 2021, it had appeared that we would be ending the year on something like the crest of a wave as Aston Martin Racing and Prodrive burn the midnight oil in order to get a ‘large number’ of new cars orders out before the start of pre-season testing next year.

That they have done already to a large degree as teams like Racing One, GPA Racing, Povoledo Racing, Bsport Racing and Racing Spirit of Leman (amongst others) have already taken delivery of their new Vantage race cars ahead of their 2022 commitments both in Europe and the in the USA.

Sadly, that news and knowledge of a greatly increased commitment within Aston Martin’s family of Partner and Customer teams was dealt something of a heavy blow today when the Garage 59 team announced a change in direction and race car machinery on the GT3 side of things as they confirmed a two car McLaren 720s commitment for 2022 in lieu of their previously announced AMR Vantage GT3 starting as early as the Asian Le Mans Series in February.

Quoting their previous long-standing relationship with the McLaren GT factory, Garage 59 Team Principal Andrew Kirkaldy confirmed that their swap to McLaren was effective immediately and raises immediate questions as to the possible number of AMR Vantage GT3’s that could be competitively active in Europe during the 2022 season.

He did however confirm that the team would retain (for hire) their two existing Vantage GT3’s for drivers/series yet to be confirmed with any interested parties.

Whilst that is obviously bad news for us, we have been told that whilst the number of GT3’s remain relatively low around the world, the number of Vantage GT4 cars has somewhat ‘exploded’ with certainly most (if not all plus some new teams) taking up their AMR options in the Vantage GT4 in both the SRO America and European family of series as well as recent news of further GT3/GTD entries into the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship confirmed earlier by both Magnus Racing and the Heart of Racing teams.

With the start of the 2022 season just a couple of weeks away with the Gulf 12Hrs event from the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, we are still trying to establish whether the previously announced Vantage GT8R Class at the Dubai 6Hr event in late January is still ‘ a thing’ or whether that has become another early victim of the global situation. If it has then the next place where you can watch GT8R’s race is within New Zealand’s new Super GT Series that starts at Highlands Park in mid-January.

With that said, may we just take the time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous and safe New Year. If that’s not your kind of thing, then we thank you for being with us in 2021 and we will hopefully be seeing you again in 2022.

Photo Credits – AMR / Garage 59 / Social Media