Three Aston Martin GTE's confirmed within the WEC 2023

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

After a period of some weeks with little to no information to feed off over the winter break, the World Endurance Championship today announced their thirty-eight-car entry list for this coming season with fourteen GTE Am crews populating the grid amongst the expected LMP2 and Hypercars.

The Japanese D’Station Racing team beat all to the party yesterday confirming their re-alignment with Tom Ferrier’s TF Sport team as the #777 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE of Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii would be paired this time by another young Silver ranked driver in Casper Stevenson.

Returning for their third year within the WEC, the Japanese squad have grown in both confidence and speed, utilising the experience of the likes of Andrew Watson and Charlie Fagg along the way to this time hook up with former Ginetta Juniors, F4 and GT World Challenge Europe racer Stevenson.

The question over the return of the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana has eventually been answered, confirming his return for the swansong year of the GTE platform with long term partners AMR although his co-drivers have yet to be confirmed.

Having apparently missed out on (or indeed not applied for) an entry into this months Daytona Rolex 24, it looked possible that the Canadian might not return but with his last years co-drivers (David Pittard and Nikki Thiim) featuring within the Rolex 24 again this year – the old trio might just be reunited (subject to driver grades again) for one last go at a second, class title for Dalla-Lana.

With the loss of Ben Keating to the Corvette team over the winter, that obviously left a hole within the TF Sport garage but that has been filled with Omani racer Ahmad Al Harthy taking another step up the ACO rules ladder again from the European Le Mans Series of last season to the WEC of this win a TF Sport supported entry under the name of ORT by TF.

He will be partnered again by Charlie Eastwood as well as former GT4 America Champion Michael Dinan as he returns to the AMR family for the first time since winning that accolade with the Flying Lizard team.

With OEM manufacturers again returning to the series and with the loss of the GTE Pro class at the end of last season, the dynamics within the WEC will certainly change as the Championship again looks to start at Sebring later in March.