Its about to get very busy!
Thursday, March 02, 2023
In no particular order, we had the confirmation of entry lists into both the opening round of the World Endurance Championship from Sebring for the weekend after next and as well as the entry into this year’s centenary event of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Whereas we did have confirmation of the three Aston Martin Vantage GTE full season entries into the mid-March 1000mile event from Florida we did not have confirmation still of the full driver line up within the #98 Northwest AMR car alongside gentleman driver and entrant Paul Dalla Lana and his Pro ranked co-driver and former WEC GTE Pro Champion Nicki Thiim.
With David Pittard now ineligible to continue thanks to his now gold status, it seems that we will be awaiting this final detail right up to the start of next weekend’s Prologue test at the circuit. We did at least have confirmation from TF Sport that Casper Stevenson will be aboard the #777 D’Station Racing AMR GTE entry all season after the ACO incorrectly posted Charlie Fagg as the resident silver grade driver aboard that car. The new ORT by TF Sport GTE entry from Ahmad Al Harthy was also launched in Oman.
Then we confirmation that two further Aston Martins will participate within June’s twenty-four event as the #72 all French TF Sport full season European Le Mans entry was accepted by invitation as well as the automatically qualifying #55 GMB Motorsport Aston from the Le Mans Cup Series.
Many of these cars and drivers have been in testing action this week both at a snowy Paul Ricard in southern France and at the Monza and Barcelona circuits.
We have since had the news from the Prosport Racing team of anything up to five of their Aston Martins will compete at this seasons NLS and N24 events this season with two of the Vantage GT3’s again featuring amongst their Vantage GT4 platforms with Alex Brundle getting behind the wheel of one (GT3) for the headline event. That team is presently at Navarro in Spain for the latest round of the GT Winter Series with many of the drivers listed within their press release.
Irish racer Alex Denning also confirmed his seat with the Prosport Racing team for this seasons ADAC GT4 Germany Series with a co-driver yet to be determined having raced with the team at the GT Winter Series at Jerez a few weeks ago.
The French AGS Events Racing team also announced driver line ups within their now reduced AMR adventure this season within both the FFSA GT4 and GT4 European Series leaving just one empty seat within their #98 car in the latter series with Vincent Botteiller.
Finally in the USA, we have seen the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship and Michelin pilot Challenge AMR entries from the Heart of Racing, Magnus Racing and Team TGM crews take to the track of Sebring for official testing before their second round of the series in two weeks’ time – the same weekend again as the opening WEC round there.
This week also fires off the first round of the GT America Series around the streets of St Petersburg with Aston Martin being represented in both GT3 and GT4 format as the The Racers Group returns to the brand with driver Derek DeBoer alongside the five AMR Vantage GT4 cars from Flying Lizards, Archangel, Baby Bull Racing, Chouest Povoledo and the Heart of Racing teams.
To go with that, three to four Aston Martin GT4’s are also expected at this weekend’s 9+7-hour events of the WRL Series from Barber as the TLM Racing team audition their new cars within the series after a successful shakedown event in Florida two weeks ago.
It’s going to get busy – so sit back and enjoy!!
