In a slight twist of fact, TF Sport today confirmed the driver line up of their third Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 crew who will compete in this year’s Asian Le Mans Series that starts next month in Dubai.

A previous social media posted by Evisu Racing boss David Pun had suggested that he would be joined in the Series by both Charlie Eastwood and Adrian D’Silva within his #61 car but today’s news from the Sussex based team (who are presently out in Daytona for this weekend’s opening round of the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship) has now confirmed that Pun and D’Silva will now be joined by Heart of Racing IMSA and AMR factory driver Ross Gunn instead.

In interesting event at the Zhuhai International Circuit last week as the Chinese BSEM AMR team held a multi-vehicle corporate day at the circuit with its fleet of Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 cars.

With many Chinese provinces still locked down to motor racing events, this has been one of the few showings within the country for a team that hasn’t now competed on track since the end of 2019.

It looks like the China GT Championship may be resurrecting itself from its motorsport’s governing body imposed state of hibernation due to the ongoing pandemic and getting itself ready to race as early as this weekend.

A post on social media from the Team Manager of the BSEM Aston Martin Racing Partner team earlier this week strongly suggested so with photos of a freshly re-liveried AMR Vantage GT4 as well a potential programme of races having not raced now for over two years.

 

A pivotable moment for the new Motorsports Services AMR Asia (MSAA) team was delivered to their Zhuhai facility in China last week ahead of an exciting programme of racing that is hoped to be announced soon.

Receiving the first 2019 variant of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 into China last week, it didn’t take the Weiron Tan lead team long to get their latest acquisition on track for a brief shakedown run around the Zhuhai circuit.

Aston Martin has selected Motorsports Services AMR Asia Limited (MSAA) to become its exclusive distributor of all variants of Vantage GT race cars, parts and technical support for China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the south-east Asian region.

Combining the vast experience of three key partners, including racing driver Weiron Tan and former race team manager Ron Reichert, the newly-formed organisation is tasked with expanding the British luxury sportscar brand’s motorsport footprint in the region. The primary targets for this expansion will be the 2022 Asian Le Mans Series, the GTWC Asia and the burgeoning China GT Championship.

 

Forced to sit out the whole 2020 season in China because of their own COVID-19 travel restrictions, Aston Martin Racing Partner team BSEM were out hitting the headlines earlier today in Beijing with one of their AMR Vantage GT4's being used for the back drop of a new mobile phone launch.

Not being able to race in the China GT Championship this year despite calendars being revised at least twice and sadly not at this months Macau Grand Prix either despite having secured a podium finish in the Greater Bay Area GT Cup race last time out, team boss Stanley Yang has at least been busy keeping the team's name out at the forefront at this large corporate event.

Hopefully, that will bring some interested parties towards him once motor racing reconvenes in main land China next year.

Photo credits -Stanley Yang

Just over a calendar year ago, the new turbo charged era of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 and GT4 machinery opened up their first racing accounts at the Gulf 12Hr race from the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.

There, we saw the likes of R-Motorsport, Beechdean AMR and Oman Racing with TF Sport AMR Partner Teams get their first hold of their latest AMR acquisitions whilst the factory team also entered their test and development Vantage GT4 to test it against their class peers in a live racing situation in the remaining months before each platform was finally homologated just before the start of the European season later in March this year.


Even at this early stage of Partner team interaction and at the cars first racing event, both showed an inkling of what was to come in 2019 as, and despite some technical 'niggles' with some of the cars, the Beechdean AMR GT3 came through to secure the final step of the GT3 Pro-Am podium after just a brief shakedown before the event - race one/podium one!!

Over the winter months, the Prodrive factory would put into practice lessons learned with both platforms in the Gulf 12Hr (and as we later understood from TF Sport boss Tom Ferrier that that was surprisingly little adjustment from what raced at the Gulf 12hr) as they struggled to meet customer demand for their new chassis in time for pre-season testing and indeed race meetings March/April this year. Whilst most platforms were delivered in time for at least some pre-season testing, there were a few teams that were left wanting as their season commitments came up quickly upon them.


The Vantage GT4 would quickly get its next public race early in the New Year at the opening round of the new Michelin Pilot Challenge Series that supports IMSA's opening salvo of their 2019 season -  the Rolex 24 at the Daytona International Speedway. Running in the hands of long standing AMR team Automatic Racing, the performance of the GT4 certainly turned heads despite a few technical issues that otherwise blighted a successful US audition.

The initial bulk of new cars was delivered to just the European markets, 2019 would show an unprecedented level of demand as teams (some existing - some new to the marque) were entered and had many customer drivers waiting to race these new cars in Series and Championships like the British GT, Blancpain GT Series, ADAC GT Masters, ADAC GT4 Germany, GT4 European Series and GT Open, etc. Several teams would also be running parallel race programmes with the same rolling stock such was the demand for the cars with their initial delivery delay just adding to the then high stress levels within the teams by the time their rolling stock were finally delivered and for some that was on the morning of the Champions Media Day!!


On the eve of these Partner and Customer team racing commitments in the 2019 season, the new AMR Vantage GTE had already come of age having secured its first pole position and race win in the World Endurance Championship so there were now high expectations on these two smaller Vantage platforms as their season began. It turned out that neither would disappoint.

The biggest influx of cars came from within the British GT Championship where no fewer than eleven cars running in both classes - four cars with TF Sport, two with Beechdean, two with Academy and three with Optimum Motorsports. It would be quickly apparent whether AMR's latest weapon would/could carry the mantle established by the V12 machine that it replaced - and it did with podiums for Optimums GT3 and Beechdean GT4 new crews at their opening round.


This Championship would ultimately produce the largest number of Championship and Class winners as well as Jonny Adam extended his Championship credentials to win his fourth overall title with new team convert Graham Davidson whilst across their garage, Ash Hand and Tom Canning would secure their first overall GT4 crown as well as ultimately the AMR Drivers Academy prize for Canning.

These two titles were further bolstered by the GT3 Silver Class win for Optimum's Ollie Wilkinson and Bradley Ellis whilst Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher secured the GT4 Pro-Am title with their Beechdean AMR prepared Vantage GT4.


In what was then the Blancpain GT Series, Partner teams R-Motorsport, Garage 59 and Oman Racing with TF Sport would fly the AMR flag in the Endurance rounds with the highly influential Swiss based team also having two Vantage GT3 cars in the Blancpain World Challenge Europe sprint series.

For the Endurance Series, it would be the new Pro-Am driver line of Ahmad Al Harthy, Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood aboard the #97 Oman Racing with TF Sport who would claim the highest honours in the series whilst the #188 Garage 59 car of Alex West and Chris Goodwin (with a little help from Chris Harris along the way) who would only just miss out in the Am Class.


It was of course not all fun and games for the AMR runners as Garage 59's Pro car of Come Ledogar, Jonny Adam and Andrew Watson as well as the #62 R-Motorsport car of Mathieu Vaxivierre, Maxime Martin and Matt Parry would end up having the most disastrous season imaginable with each car claiming just two and one point respectively by the end of the season. The other R-Motorsport Pro car of Jake Dennis, Marvin Kirchhofer and Alex Lynn would at least finish P6 overall whilst their World Challenge Europe runners Aaro Vainio and Hugo de Sadeleer only just missed out on the Silver Cup title after the final race of the season.

SRO sanctioned series, the GT4 European Series would be another that saw an increased prevalence in AMR runners for their 2019 season as Academy Motorsport, German team Prosport Performance and Belgium team Street Art Racing would offer two Vantage GT4's each together with a periodic attendance from the Generation AMR SuperRacing squad.


For the German based team, Prosport Performance (by now running under the Propeak Performance banner) their conversion to the AMR brand would seem like a choice well made despite the late arrival of their cars with performances and results initially going in their favour as the drivers became more accustomed to their cars. Issues with cars through their over optimistic multi programme of racing in both this and their national ADAC series began to cause performance issues within to such a degree that the team finally pulled it's four cars from the final rounds of the ADAC GT Masters and ADAC GT4 Germany Series before season's end.

Sad for all involved by all means but also verification that modern motorsport is so competitive these days that an 'acceptable' level of success could be measured so precisely.


Whilst that was a large dose of bad news on one hand, the Am Class Street Art Racing entry of Clement Seyler and Pascal Bachmann would go on to establish another AMR overall Class winner in GT4 European Series Am Class in what was the young Luxembourg racers first season in GT's.

The German VLN Series and ADAC Total N24 headliner would also bring about some surprising driver crews and successes as first Peter Cate, Jamie Chadwick and Alex Brundle would secure the new GT4's first overall class win at the 24 hour event before the latter, accompanied by his F1 accomplished father Martin would race together in the same car at a VLN event later in the year where they would finish an incredible P2 again in the SP8T class.


After the initial rush, the factory was soon able to supply cars to its Partner and Customer teams further afield, more GT4 cars to their American market whilst both GT3 and GT4 cars went to the Far East for competition in both Japanese Super GT and Super Taikyu Series as well as the China GT4 Championship.

Whilst the ultra competitive Super GT series proved hard and frustrating work for the factory's new Partner Team D'Station Racing AMR, they would have better success in the Super Taikyu Series finishing just off the top step of the Series by the end of the season. Since then, the team have gone onto enter (and win) their class in the opening round of the Asian Le Mans Series in Shanghai earlier this month with AMR WEC factory Ross Gunn part of the squad.


Gunn also played a part in the Vantage GT4's introduction into the China GT Championship after young AMR Academy Driver Yves Volte initially paved the way with the BSEM AMR gentleman driver with their older, normally aspirated Vantage GT8 whilst they waited for the delivery of their new car. Podiums and race wins were the successes for both Gunn and David Pun by the end of the year before the team later sent two such cars to the Macau GP where one finished an incredible P2 in the GT4 support race.

For Aston Martin Racing, the new goal continues to be that of the North America market with having now gone several years in the American series' without any fully factory backed AMR cars competing within them. 2020 bears the hallmarks that their hard work is now being rewarded with 'more than a handful' of new, turbo charged generation of race cars about to go racing in the USA.


For the Rolex 24 that starts in January, we will have two new Vantage GT3 (GTD) cars compete in the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship for the first time in three years - the Heart of Racing being a full season entry with another cameo attendance of long time AMR customer Paul Dalla Lana with his supporting drivers Mathias Lauda, Pedro Lamy and Ross Gunn. Fellow AMR WEC driver Nicki Thiim also plays a part with the Heart of Racing car.

Beyond them, 2020 will also see two new AMR cars compete in the recently renamed SRO Series GT4 America as well as further (potential) runners in the Michelin Pilot Challenge with the help of AMR strategic North America Partner CSJ Motorsport.


Back in Europe, the preparations for 2020 seem to be a little more sedate with only R-Motorsport announcing details of their Intercontinental GT Challenge Season challenge at the Bathurst 12hr (and the AMR Vantage GT3's audition in Australia) with an international and series diverse line up, Optimum Motorsport have confirmed so far just a single returning driver back to the British GT Championship with AMR WEC driver Maxime Martin announcing his own new GT4 team that will do battle in both GT4 European Series and ADAC GT4 Germany series.

Until further confirmation is received from these multiple teams we can only sit and wait for the deadlines to come and go and hope that something is announced in between. 2019 has been an incredible opening season for the new breed of race car out of the Banbury factory with nearly 50 GT4's and 22 GT3's already having been built in their first year!


2020 may not be as busy at last years but at least it should be just as exciting to watch - whatever the series and whatever the venue - but then, there is a lot more still to come from Aston Martin..........!!!


Photo credits - AMR / Aston Martin / Blancpain / British GT / R-Motorsport / CSJ Motorpsort / IMSA / Gulf 12h / China GT / D'Station Racing

Pace, endurance, determination and a little bit of luck were just some of the ingredients that Japanese based team D'Station Racing AMR used to great effect in their inaugural race of the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series to claim their first Series win at the Shanghai International Circuit in China this morning.

Already comfortable with the racing characteristic of their new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3, the team used the experience and coaching expertise of AMR factory driver Ross Gunn to help the Prodrive assisted team set up their #77 car with the Michelin tyres - something which were new to both the team and co drivers Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii with their AMR's back home.


Already having competed in Shanghai twice in recent months in both the China GT Championship and World Endurance Championship, Gunn qualified the car P3 out of the nine GT car field for this opening round and just quarter of a second back from the then pace setting Ferrari 488.

Todays race was ran in dry, warm conditions although a familiar combination of low cloud cover, haze and smog around the large metropolis of Shanghai did keep visibility down again from what it perhaps should be in this day and age!

With the start of the four hour race beginning with its customary ACO rules rolling start, it really didn't take starting driver Fujii very long at all to dispatch the two Ferrari's ahead to lay an early claim the GT Class lead having completed less than 1/3rd of the opening lap. During the next hour and a bit of his stint, his lead over the chasing #88 JLOC Lamborghini in second would both increase and decrease as the Super GT racer pushed on before letting his tyres then rest slightly over this highly abrasive circuit. The Ferrari's meanwhile were nowhere!


Just after the 70 minute mark, Fujii would pit to hand over to co-driver and team principle Satoshi Hoshino but time would be lost on track within this stop allowing the #88 car to effectively take the lead of the race in class by the time all had pitted at least once.

Having to try and reduce that gap, the stint for Hoshino was something of a lonely affair as he could neither see in front the car that he was chasing nor the car behind, the one he needed to keep away from but despite his years, Hoshino would drive a faultless stint as a large part of it was cut short by the first Full Course Yellow/Safety Car needed to recover the #90 Team AAI BMW M6 GT3 that had become lodged on top of the armco.

Going back to green with a further FCY quickly after the restart shrouded the #77 cars second pit stop for Gunn to get in with about 1hr 45minutes to go and he would be up against a number of other factory works drivers as all looked to press on to claim those coveted points that would ultimately take the winning team to Le Mans.


Out of sequence to one another, it soon became abundantly clear that the other BMW in the race, the #17 Astro Veloce Motorsport car of Jens Klingmann had stealthily assumed the front spot in GT leaving both the #88 Lambo and #77 AMR to chase with just over 16 seconds covering first to third with 90 minutes remaining.

By the time of the final hour of the race, Gunn had caught up to the rear of the #88 car but had to pit for its final stop for fuel and tyres. Whilst the #77 car was in pit lane a third FCY was called for a stranded LMP2 car out on track and only time would tell wether or not those who pitted under full caution would benefit more than those who pitted partly under green like the D'Station car did.


Answering some of that question and just ten minutes later, Gunn caught and passed the #17 car for position - up to P2 in class but still some 15 seconds to make up the leading Lambo! Then came that little strike of luck as the #88 car would be pinged for a pit lance violation at its final stop earlier and that meant that during their compulsory drive through penalty the #77 AMR would assume the lead of the class.

For the final 20 minutes of the race, that class lead would never come under threat again as Gunn would finish 10 seconds ahead of the #88 after their significant improvement in performance from that of Free Practice. For the four Ferrari 488's in the class, none would ever challenge the eventual victors in the class despite their quicker Qualifying time as most simply mirrored each others strategy and even tripped over one another in the process!


A great start for D'Station Racing AMR in China, in racing you just need to limit your mistakes (and they make some) as well as capitalise upon the mistakes and bad luck of others and that is precisely what these guys did today.


The Series next round out of their four round season will be at The Bend in Australia! Not many people have been there, even fewer have raced there so that will be a very interesting race. That race takes place in mid January 2020 - looking forward to that already!!

Photo credits - ALMS / D'Station Racing

Thats very much the case for Japanese Aston Martin Racing Partner team, D'Station Racing AMR having just concluded their national Super GT and Super Taikyu Series commitments to find themselves over in mainland China this weekend for the opening round of the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series.

With one of their trio of Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's now having arrived at the Shanghai International Circuit still sporting the technical decals of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series, works begins now for the team and their technical support from the Prodrive factory to ready the car for the start of track proceedings for the opening four hours of racing that begins on Friday with the drivers not to arrive until the day before.


The D'Station Racing AMR car with drivers Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Ross Gunn joins 25 other full season entries and competes in a GT3 grid of 9 cars - all contesting for one of four automatic invitations awarded at the end of the series for next years 24Hours of Le Mans.

Last season we off course had the Red River Sport with TF Sport entry of Bonomy Grimes and Jonny Mowlem with the older normally aspirated V12 Vantage, a pair who have now moved up into the World Endurance Championship with AF Corse in the GTE Am class and it is the same ambition of this Japanese duo to meet and and this time race against Gunn and his #98 AMR crew at the Circuit de La Sarthe next year.


This race comes at the end of an intense period of racing support from some of the guys from Prodrive for its Asian based teams, support that started off at the finale of the Super GT Series last month, saw the end of both the Super Taikyu and China GT Championships over the next two weeks as well as the Macau GP only last weekend. For Gunn, he has also just finished two races at Shanghai, both in China GT and the WEC where he returned home with another GTE Am class podium finish.

This solo AMR car competes in the GT field of nine that comprises of four Ferrari 488's, three BMW M6's and a solo Lamborghini Huracan Eve.


What is interesting is that Gunn was entered into this series (as well as the WEC) as a Silver rank driver as per his ranking last years FIA Driver lists but the new 2020 list (published today) shows him now rated as a Gold!

Photo credits - D'Station / TF Sport / AMR

This weekend sees the 66th running of the Macau Grand Prix around the extremely tight and twisty street circuit near Zhuhai in south-eastern China and features two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's competing in the supporting Suncity Group Greater Bay Area GT Cup race.

With the continued backing and support of both the regionally based BSEM AMR team and their Prodrive partners, gentleman driver David Pun returns with a one car for himself with another for returning customer racer Alex Chang.


David Pun raced a full season in the China GT Championship this year, initially with Yves Volte in the older, normally aspirated V8 Vantage GT4 before progressing to the new turbo charged iteration of race car once one had cleared customs from the Prodrive factory. He then went on to claim both pole positions and race podiums (including wins) with the assistance of AMR factory driver Ross Gunn later in the Championship. His #19 car will feature the prominent logo's of his Japanese Evisu clothing business on this and four other race cars featuring at the event.

His race car also exists in a very cool 1/43 die cast format.


Chang also returns to the team having raced with them last year in one of BSEM's normally aspirated Vantages in the Macau Racing Festival that is raced mid season where he also enjoyed podium success.


Track action for these guys begins on Thursday with the first of the Free Practice sessions before Qualifying on Saturday. Their twelve lap race begins early on Sunday morning at 09:35hrs (local).

Photo credits - David Pun / Social media

With most National, European and International race Series and Championships already at or very close to their conclusion for the 2019 season there seems little to look forward to over the winter months (with the exception of one or two bespoke stand alone racing events of course), but at least we still have the outcome of two driver talent selection processes to be decided.

Most recently and following the process ending track sessions of last week at Silverstone for the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year where the very capable young lady race car driver Jamie Chadwick makes up one quarter the four candidate driver list of possibilities for the top UK accolade.


Joining three other single seater specialists, Chadwick (already a GT4 and single seater Champion) have all been measured behind the scenes on simulators, had their physical and mental fitness assessed before finally making it out on track last week in machinery that included a Garage 59 supplied Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 for the ultimate driving comparison.

Hopefully, the guidance and instruction from her former driver coach Jonny Adam at Snetterton last week came in handy for her over the two day assessment ahead of the final reveal at the annual Autosport Awards night in early December.

We wish her well.


Then of course we have Aston Martin Racing's own 2019 Driver Academy that (we are told) should be coming to some kind on conclusion within the next few weeks.

Relaunched for 2019 for any driver between the ages of 17 and 25 and driving for any Aston Martin Racing Partner or Customer team this year saw a mighty twenty three driver entry confirmed by the team at the start of the year.

Many were AMR convertees, turning to GT racing for the first time as the next stepping stone in their motor racing ladder career path and mainly competing in Europe although a few did figure in series further afield in both China and the USA.


With what we have learned from the last winner of a similar process in 2015 (Ross Gunn) was that race results were not the sole solution to the questions being posed by the team as (like above) mental and physical abilities also came into play alongside their media relations capabilities as well as technical and engineering awareness.

What is clear is that most benefitted in some way from this process, having the likes of Andrew Watson, Charlie Eastwood, Ross Gunn, Jonny Adam, Maxime Martin, Darren Turner all on hand at some point in the process to help these young drivers develop.


There were also a few drivers from the Academy process who went on to be crowned as winners at the end of their respective seasons - these include Ollie Wilkinson who won the British GT Championship GT3 Silver Cup (and was the only candidate to drive a GT3), Tom Canning and Ash Hand who won the British GT GT4 Championship together with TF Sport and Clement Seyler who secured both the GT4 European Series Am Class title (with Pascal Bachmann) as well as the Sean Edwards Foundation Young Driver of the Year Award.

As with any season, there was some degree of 'natural wastage' as a few drivers became victims to both circumstance and the hugely competitive nature that is modern motor racing as more than five would not make it to the end of the season in the team/car in which they started.


The candidates

Patrick Kibble (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Tom Canning (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Ash Hand (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Josh Price (UK) TF Sport British GT Vantage GT4
Clement Seyler (LUX) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Julien Darras (F) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jamie Vandenbalck (BEL) Street Art Racing GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Matthew Cowley (UK) Academy GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Alex Toth-Jones (UK) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Micah Stanley (MON) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Ben Hurst (CAN) Academy British GT Vantage GT4
Tom Wood (UK) Academy GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Connor O’Brien (UK) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Jack Butel (UK) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Patrick Matthiesen (DEN) Optimum British GT Vantage GT4
Ollie Wilkinson (UK) Optimum British GT/GT Open Vantage GT3
Matthew George (UK) Generation AMR GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Akhil Rabindra (IND) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jeremie Lesoudier (F) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Florian Thoma (CH) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
David Griessner (A) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Jeremy Sarhy (F) Propeak Performance GT4 European Series Vantage GT4
Yves Volte (GER) BSEM China GT