Finally - engines roll at the start of the 2022 motor racing season

After what has felt like an eternity but in reality has only been little over four weeks, it’s great to see and hear the engines of motor racing finally start to set up again for what will be another incredible busy season of racing.

Last out for any Aston Martin Racing customer team back in early December at the GT Winter Series opener at Portimao has this week various teams preparing themselves for the opening race events of the year as well as opening test sessions in preparation for their respective 2022 commitments.

Starting at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi has the Gulf 12Hr entry finally hitting the F1 circuit in Open Practice today ahead of their six plus six-hour event over the course of Saturday with David Holloway and his Century Motorsport prepared AMR Vantage GT4 leading the class by the end of today’s opening track action against their sister BMW M4 GT4 and Greystone’s McLaren 570s GT4 within the events fifteen car strong grid.

Back for some more of the same after his visit to the event back in 2019 with then an Optimum Motorsport prepared Aston Martin GT4, Holloway is this year joined by his two closest co-drivers in Piers Johnson and Bradley Ellis.

Getting fifty laps in during session 1 to finish P2 in class and another fifty-five laps in session 2 to lead their three-car class by nearly half a second puts them into a good place ahead of tomorrow’s three Free Practice sessions and individual Qualifying runs later in the day.

Also out and about on track this week has been the Heart of Racing team as they prepare to fly out to Dubai this weekend in time for their second Creventic Series entry in so many months at the Dubai 24.

Having sampled the 24H Series back at a fateful visit to Sebring where late gear box issues robbed them and their #423 AMR Vantage GT4 of a near certain class podium, drivers Gray Newell, Ian James, Alex Riberas and Roman de Angelis will reconvene in the desert next week to hopefully make amends within their eleven GT4 class field.

They will then be straight back and across the Atlantic in time for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Champion Roar before the 24 event from Daytona just the weekend later.

The Heart of Racing car of course joins the Duel Racing with TF Sport and PROsport Racing AMR Vantage GT3 crews as well as the PROsport Vantage GT4 crews all as previously reported and who all remain on the events provisional entry list.

Then we have seen the American based Bsport Racing team out for some early test mileage at the Palm Beach Raceway in Florida after their GT3 and GTE exploits in both the UK and Bahrain late last year where Brian Putt and Kenton Koch are expected to return for another bash at the GT4 America as well as the GT America Series with a new for 2022 two car effort.

Finally and most recently, we have had the Uno Racing team out in force at their local Zhuhai Circuit today with both of their AMR Vantage GT3’s and GT4 for some early year mileage. Whilst it is not clear for which series they are entering this season – whether it be the GTSSC Series again or even the GT World Challenge Asia Series, we do still know that the team is listed upon the entry list (under David Pun’s Evisu Racing name) for the Asian Le Mans Series that kicks off in Dubai in just four week’s time.

Their last outing was at Macau where Pun secured class honours by the end of the two GT races around the infamously tight street circuit.

Their biggest struggle, like so many teams entered into all the early races of 2022 mentioned above will still be travel in and out of various countries due to CV19.

Fingers crossed for all of them.

Photo credits – Gulf 12hr / Social Media / Teams