Todays news out of #TeamAMR certainly hit the headlines
Thursday, February 03, 2022
The Aston Martin Racing family of Partner and Customer teams revealed a little bit more today of their season plans as the incredible busy but soon to be even busier TF Sport team hit the morning headlines with another entry into the European Le Mans Series.
Having already confirmed the return of last season’s customer driver John Hartshorne to the Sussex based team for another year of AMR Vantage GTE racing with new co-drivers of Henrique Chaves and Jonny Adam in support, the team today confirmed something that had been almost expected in the form of the progression up the GT ladder and into the next level ACO rules racing for both Ahmad Al Harty and Sam De Haan.
Already confirmed into this month’s Asian Le Mans Series over in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with third driver Charlie Eastwood in another of Tom Ferrier’s AMR Vantage GT3’s, today’s announcement confirms a full season commitment into the European Le Mans Series for both Al Harthy and De Haan – but this time alongside former World Endurance Championship GTE Pro Champion Marco Sorenson as the #69 Oman Racing with TF Sport AMR GTE/GT3 joins up with the #95 TF Sport car of Hartshorne in both ACO Series.
From this we can only expect an application from both crews for an entry into this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in June as that is surely their end goal for the season.
Whilst this was going on on-line earlier today, we also saw our first glimpses of the #69 AMR Vantage GT3 that is due to compete in the ALMS at a corporate event earlier in Dubai.
Also this week, we have seen one of Aston Martin’s latest Customer team in action for the first time at Brands Hatch, all in time for this year’s British GT Championship.
Having only collected their brand-new AMR Vantage GT4 from the Prodrive factory earlier this week, Norfolk based R Racing were straight to the Kent circuit for some early laps for their so far sole declared driver Josh Miller as well as some additional drivers (of some note it must be said) also there for a few laps of their own.
Whilst we cannot say whether any of these additional drivers will be part of this British GT programme, one of them was a reigning GT4 European Series Silver Cup Champion so that could be quite interesting!!
German based Racing One team will also been in action next week over in Portimao as the team further tests their (multiple) AMR Vantage GT4 cars ahead of an expected multi-series commitment in 2022, with their Aston drivers also competing in the next round of the GT Winter Series at the circuit over the following weekend.
Finally, over in the USA we are not too far off the start of the SRO America family of series with GT America kicking things off first at a return to the street circuit of St Petersburg in less than three week’s time.
Last time we saw that circuit, the USA was on the brink of lockdown because of COVID with early Free Practice sessions being stopped mid-session because of that. Hopefully we will not see any repeat of that this year as we expect multiple Aston Martin entries to fill the grids this year.
Last year’s GT4 Champion Jason bell has been first to show off his new 2022 livery aboard his pair of GMG Racing prepared Aston’s this week as he ventures over to California for some testing at the Thermal Club.
Also, the Prosport Competition team have been testing their older normally aspirated V8 Vantage GT4 (GTA) at Sebring ahead of a resumption of race activity within their chosen World Racing League Series which starts at Nola Motorsport Park for an 8 + 8 hour event next weekend.
Photo credits - Teams