No AMR team commit to full season of GT World Challenge Europe
Wednesday, March 08, 2023
It was a sad but not an unsurprising fact to learn today that this year’s GT World Challenge Europe Endurance and Sprint Series will not feature a single Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered team between for the first time since (we believe) the older V12 version of the Vantage GT3 was launched into what was then the Blancpain GT Series in 2012.
Last year, it was the Beechdean AMR team who flew the flag for the brand in the opening rounds of the series only to suffer bad luck and technical malfunction within their Gold Cup and Pro class entries in the run up to the headline event of the SRO calendar at the Spa 24 where contact then wiped out both their then Silver Cup entry in the opening stages of the race and then their Pro car, potentially robbing that of a potential podium finish for their three AMR works drivers.
Then, there was always the case of its unfavourable BoP inbetween!!
With most (if not all) of its competitors now having moved to either brand new or Evo’d versions of their OEM GT3 machinery, the V8 Vantage GT3 is slowly becoming uncompetitive (certainly within Europe) so it’s hardly surprising that this news has eventually come about within this arena of competition.
Besides, we can still hope that teams like the Heart of Racing will be back again for ad-hoc rounds leading up to and including the 2023 Spa 24.
With most (if not all) of its competitors now having moved to either brand new or Evo’d versions of their OEM GT3 machinery, the V8 Vantage GT3 is slowly becoming uncompetitive (certainly within Europe) so it’s hardly surprising that this news has eventually come about within this arena of competition.
Besides, we can still hope that teams like the Heart of Racing will be back again for ad-hoc rounds leading up to and including the 2023 Spa 24.
For Beechdean, they are of course back where we like them and that’s within the British GT Championship as team boss Andrew Howard again shares his GT3 with Ross Gunn for another (and Gunn’s first) crack at the Pro-Am Class title.
That team alongside the R-Racing Vantage GT4 team of Josh Miller and Seb Hopkins were out on track today at a very chilly and snowy Silverstone circuit, ahead of the opening round from Oulton Park over the Easter weekend.
Photo credits - GTWCE / Social media / A Lofthouse
