If you fancy something a little more ‘old school’ then this weekend’s Le Mans Classic will certainly be up your street with a whole host of venerable Aston Martin and Aston Martin Racing powered machine featuring within the extensive entry lists.

Obviously competing around the same circuit layout as the more widely acclaimed 24 Hours of Le Mans doe, track action will begin on Friday before two days of races within races for the entry list that covers a significant period of sportscar racing.

 

There will be competing the #007, #008 and #009 Aston Martin Lola DBR1-2 prototypes that date back to the 2008-9 era with the factory team as well as Aston Martin Racing DBR9, Vantage GTE’s and GT3’s as the SRO GT3 Revival Series also get track time for their new series this time round.

What is there not to like about that!?

 

 

 

Scanning through this week’s provisional entry list ahead of January’s 19th running of the Creventic Dubai 24hr proved to be an interesting one to say the least.

Not expecting to see any Aston Martin Racing powered team listed amongst the seventy strong listing, we were pleasantly surprised to read of one such GT3 entry from a team that sounded mightily familiar for the #37 car.

 

Aston Martin’s Vantage GT3 recorded a glorious class victory in the US endurance classic Petit Le Mans thanks to partner team The Heart of Racing (THoR) and drivers Ian James (GBR), Ross Gunn (GBR) and Roman De Angelis (CDN).

Introduced in 1998, the 10-Hour race held at Road Atlanta, in Braselton, Georgia, represents the finale of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, North America’s premier endurance series. Over the years it has grown in stature and is now considered one of the most coveted prizes in GT and sportscar racing. For the Seattle-based THoR team, a hard-earned victory in the GTD class that went right to the wire in Saturday’s day-to-night event caps a brilliant season with the British luxury sportscar brand.

Powered by a four-litre, twin-turbo-charged V8 engine derived from the road car, THoR’s Vantage also recorded its first IMSA-sanctioned championship title in 2021. Gunn and AMR Driver Academy candidate De Angelis clinched the Sprint Cup GTD title at Long Beach, following race victories at Belle Isle and Lime Rock. But their Road Atlanta win marked the team’s first long distance race victory, and its most significant, at the highest level with Aston Martin.

The win also marked the first triumph for Aston Martin at Petit Le Mans since Darren Turner (GBR) and Tomáš Enge (CZE) led home Pedro Lamy (POR) and Stephane Sarrazin (FRA) in a famous one-two in the GT1 class for Aston Martin Racing with a brace of DBR9s in 2006.

Having started this year’s incident-packed event cautiously, James initially focussed on staying on the lead lap and running long stints to maximise track position before handing over to Gunn and De Angelis who went on the attack as the race ramped up into the night. Rarely out of the top three, Gunn and De Angelis were persistent front-runners. And following a superb final stint from the Canadian, Gunn was able to pit earlier than his rivals in the climactic run to the flag and soaked up the pressure from the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche in the final laps of the race. The victory ensured that the team and its drivers secured third in the overall GTD standings.

“This win means so much to everyone at The Heart of Racing and Aston Martin Racing,” said works driver Gunn after the race. “We’ve put a lot of time and energy into working with THoR, and the car and the team have been brilliant all season-long. For me personally it’s a career highlight to win my first major ‘blue riband’ race in the US, and for us as a team it proves what we are capable of, with the right equipment.”

THoR team principal and driver James added: “This is an awesome result and it’s a testament to all the hard-working and talented individuals we have in this team. The Aston Martin Vantage has proved to be a competitive machine all season, and today Roman and Ross were simply brilliant; they weren’t going to let anyone beat us, we were just on fire all day!”

John Gaw, Managing Director of Aston Martin Racing, said: “The second half of this season has proved emphatically just how much of a force the Aston Martin Vantage is in international GT racing at present. To win at Petit Le Mans, Aston Martin’s first win here in 15 years, is an outstanding achievement and an example of why the car is such a fierce competitor in the hands of our capable partners. Coming off the back of championship wins in Japan’s Super Taikyu series, British GTs and IMSA, as well as race victories in the Nürburgring Langstrecken Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship, and not forgetting the overall podium finish in the Spa 24 Hours, Vantage is now the equal of any machine at all levels of GT competition.”

The Dream Boys are apparently re-uniting for a one off special near London next weekend!!

Nah, us neither - but we have today learned that the once inseparable driving duo of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam are getting back together for this weekends fifth race of the revised 2020 British GT Championship from Brands Hatch.


Having unfortunately had to bail out on two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 entries into this years Championship in both the Pro-Am and Silver Cup Classes for reasons related to a certain pandemic, Howard's Beechdean AMR had promised to attend and race in selective rounds of the championship as work commitments and responsibilities permitted.

This is obviously one of those rounds, and for the joint multiple Championship winning duo that is only good news not only for us as AMR fans but also for the Championship as a whole who's numbers have been severely affected this year - although the quality of racing has fortunately not!!.


Not only are the team bring their AMR V8 Vantage GT3 to the 'party' but they will also be redressing her into a more DBRS9'esq attire in homage to the car that the pairing won their first two Championship wins with way back in 2011.

This entry this makes up the events Aston Martin entry up to three cars now with the two full season GT4 entries of what can already be termed as being Championship winning contending crews from TF Sport.

What would be dream like though would be for the Championship to allow the return of an unrestricted V12 Vantage - just for the sheer hell of it!!!

One of only ten such examples ever made by Aston Martin Racing, Racecarsdirect.com are listing for sale one such example of this rare breed - the DBR9 GT1.

Raced for the last few seasons within both the Masters Historic and the Peter Auto Endurance Legends Series, we last saw this car compete with its present owner Dominic Roschmann at the Aston Martin Festival at Le Mans in 2018 where the car finished third overall in that race behind  race winners Peter Dumbreck/Chris Harris in their Aston Martin Vulcan and second placed Benny Simonsen and Lasse Sorensen in their AMR Vantage GTE.



Original built as chassis nine, this cars racing career lasting just two seasons before a substantial accident at the 2007 Spa 24hr that warranted a complete chassis change by Prodrive but despite this work, the chassis retained its DBR9/9 numbering. The damaged chassis is even included in this sale.

Full details can be found Here

As published on this website back on 5th November 2011, Aston Martin Racing began testing their latest generation of race car utilising their new Vantage range of road car chassis, a car which would then go onto replace the ageing DBR9 and DBRS9 range of cars in what was to become GTE and GT3 rules.

AMR drivers Darren Turner and Jonny Adam were a couple of the first drivers to clock up some initial mileage within the converted GT2 car at Prodrive's proving ground before hitting the race tracks around the UK later over the winter of 2011/12.

Aside from the earliest prototype style of race car to bear the Aston Martin badge (the AMR 1 in the late 1980's) only two further cars have been developed by Aston Martin Racing or in conjunction with Aston Martin Racing in modern ACO rules motorsport.

The first of course was the hugely loveable Lola Aston Martin B09/60 V12 which was built to race in the 2009 European Le Mans Series and American Le Mans Series following the team running a smaller development car with Charouz Racing earlier in 2008. Only four examples of the LMP1 car were ever built.

The reign of the B09/60 platform was to have been replaced with an all new and fully in-house developed AMR One LMP1 car ready for the 2011season and it was during its pre-season testing where we found the car on track for the first time at Snetterton.

Technical issues unfortunately blighted this new chassis in its one and only season of racing, especially around the design and performance of its smaller engine block and after a disastrous event with the car at the 2011 Le Mans 24 (where both cars retired within the first 30 minutes of racing) the team took the decision to revert back to the liable Lola chassis to see out the season before electing to only race car platforms that they sell on a daily basis.

For some safety cells from the AMR One programme, they would go on to see more racing as part of the Nissan Deltawing programme.

With the Vantage platform now being so successful in GT racing across the entire GTE, GT3 and GT4 ranges since, it appears that the team's tentative toes into Hypercar with the Aston Martin Valkyrie would be the closest that AMR would be going back to prototype style of racing before further regulation changes forced a rethink with the factory and parent company - no more Hypercar - well not at least in the short term!

Again, many of these shots were taken from pubic areas of the circuits. Hope you enjoy them?

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