Silverstone welcomes four Aston Martins for British GTs Silverstone 500 this weekend

Thursday, May 04, 2023

The third race of the 2023 British GT Championship will soon be upon us this weekend around the full grand prix circuit of Silverstone for its annual Silverstone 500 endurance event.

Having only opened their account just a month ago around the idyllic circuit of Oulton Park for their annual Easter Bank Holiday weekender, this weekends’ events will see the build-up to a three-hour race around the former wartime airfield site for an enlarged entry of forty-three cars.

At the opening round we also welcomed back both the R-Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 team as well as the Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 team as full season entries and this weekend will see that AMR number double both in total and in classes as we also welcome back an AMR team of old as well as a brand new one.

The one we know will be the Century Motorsport prepared AMR Vantage GT4 for drivers David Holloway and Bradley Ellis. Former full season entries themselves, they have been keeping their racing commitments fairly limited yet targeted of late but with Ellis never too far away in between as he is a regular figure within the R-Racing team, supporting their young drivers Josh Miller and Seb Hopkins.

Then we have the latest Aston Martin powered racing customer in Blackthorn Motorsport joining the family with their brand-new AMR Vantage GT3 for drivers Claude Bovet and David McDonald for their first event in a car that will feature just a temporary livery design for this round as they compete within the Silver Am GT3 category.

The two-hour long sprints of Oulton Park last month again proved to be something of a dramatic affair as a season opener with the #97 Beechdean car of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn quickly finding their feet within race 1 for a P2 finish backed up with a P5 finish in the second race to get their 2023 account off to a good start.

The #23 R-Racing duo however would fall foul of early contact in race 1 to retire in the early stages of what was then a wet race having damaged their oil cooler, but they came back fighting in race 2 to finish just off the podium in fourth.

With one a half times more Championship points also on offer per class, this three-hour race also comes with conditions specifically designed to keep the engineering crews on their tip toes with both minimum and maximum driver times to contend with over an above any success penalties due after the last round at Oulton Park but obviously, with both Astons finishing just out of the top three after the last round, neither the #97 nor #23 cars are affected by this.

Officially timed sessions will begin on Saturday with Free Practice ahead of four rounds of Qualifying sessions as each driver will set a time with the aggregated time being used to determine the grid for race start on Sunday at 12.20hrs local.

Photo credits – Teams / D Gibson / Jacob Ebrey