Over the last couple of days Aston Martin Racing and some of their Customer Teams have had themselves their very own 'convoy' with seven transporter lorries carrying 10 cars travelling all the way down to the Portimao circuit in Portugal - a journey of nearly 2,500km for a collective winter test.

GTE cars known to have made the long journey include the #97 car of Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke and the #99 Valero sponsored Bruno Senna car.

On top the 'works' cars you can add the Beechdean GT3 of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam together with their brand new GT4 car for Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings, the two new Motorbase GT3's (no drivers currently published), one  GT3 car for the renamed MP-AMR squad of Mark Poole and Richard Abra, a single car for Paul White of Strata21, the Bilstein sponsored GT3 from N24 and a further V8 GT4.



Besides the names listed above additional drivers known to have made the trip include ex JRM LMP1 driver Karun Chandock, AMR Pro/AM stalwart Stuart Hall, members of the BTCC fraternity including Tom Onslow-Cole and reigning champion Andrew Jordan and WTCC driver Alex McDowall (amongst others). All in all that is quite a pool of motor racing knowledge and experience.

Tom Onslow-Cole is there for yet more AMR experience following on from what he had testing at Snetterton and race at Brands Hatch last year and this year it seems that it is the turn of the reigning BTCC Champion Andrew Jordan to be given a coveted AMR invite to test the Beechdean Vantage.



WTCC driver Alex McDowall also makes a return visit to the AMR paddock following a successful shakedown test with the Beechdean team at Snetterton last year prior to the teams Blancpain Endurance Series campaign.



The two day test is due to conclude on Saturday and it will be interesting to see if any further drivers make the trip as both Motorbase cars are both driverless despite being officially entered into the British GT Championship that kicks off at Oulton Park on Easter weekend. It is understood that at least one pair are due to test again in the UK early next week.



At stage it is unlikely that any data will be released by the team as the test is only being used for both shakedown and familiarisation purposes together with a degree of corporate media activity to boot.

For anyone living close to the circuit public access will not be permitted for this private test but @AMR_Official shall be updating the situation over the Friday and Saturday test.

Photo credit - AMR

 The last round of this year’s British GT Championship was a top quality event, with 30 fabulous GT racing cars contesting a two-hour race around the classic sweeps of the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. Barwell Motorsport was being represented by three Aston Martins across three different classes in the race – the Barwell-engineered Beechdean DBRS9 going for overall GT3 honours, joined by Paul Whight’s DBRS9 in GT3B and the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport Vantage GT4 entry. It was the Beechdean car – the oldest GT3 chassis on the grid – that brought home the bacon, however, with a resounding overall victory by 22 seconds after great drives from both Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.

Barwell’s Mark Lemmer was confident that he had found a great set-up on Beechdean’s 2011-spec DBRS9, and the high-downforce machine is well-suited to the fast curves of the Silverstone GP track. Jonny Adam then duly delivered a stunning qualifying lap which planted the car on overall pole position, an incredible achievement for a chassis built in 2005 against much more recent cutting-edge opposition from Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Ford, and no less than six new Ferrari 458s! It was also double-pole success for Barwell in qualifying, as the Paul Whight/Andy Ruhan DBRS9 machine also took the honours in GT3B (for older-spec GT3 machinery). This was a superb performance from Paul, who was having his first race of the season without the benefit of any testing, and blew off the cobwebs in style!

Meanwhile in GT4, by the time of Saturday morning’s qualifying session we were just thankful that we had an Aston Martin Vantage chassis to wheel out for the day! Unfortunately during Friday’s slippery first free practice session Peter Erceg suffered a big ‘off’ which badly damaged the front end of the regular Dtex-backed Vantage GT4 machine. There was insufficient time to rebuild the car in time for Saturday, and thus we immediately contacted our friends at Aston Martin Racing to see if we could hire in their GT4 ‘test car’ as a replacement for the race day! Thankfully they were able to help us out, but the car was on track day duty during Friday and we couldn’t get our hands on it until 8pm that evening. The Barwell mechanics then carried out an intense night of work preparing the car, and making some alterations to the fuel system to convert it for re-fuelling from our fuel rig during the two-hour race. Saturday morning’s half hour qualifying was thus little more than a ‘shakedown’ test for Peter and ‘celebrity guest’ driver, Tiff Needell, who was making his Vantage GT4 race debut.


There was hectic action throughout the field in the opening laps of the 2-hour race, as the packed 30-car grid put on some great racing. With the Aston Martin DBRS9 running on slightly harder compound Avon rubber, it is vulnerable in the early stages of the race as it takes longer to get heat into the tyres than its rivals on the softer compound. Both Andrew and Paul suffered from this and lost places as they were forced to tread carefully until their Avons were up to proper working temperature. Paul’s time loss was compounded when he was nudged off the track by a rival car, dropping him down to third in GT3B. Peter was suffering from a different reason for losing time – the replacement Vantage GT4 is a lower specification car and a good three seconds a lap slower than his 2011-spec machine! Unfortunately this left him and Tiff powerless to make any progress in the GT4 rankings, and thus all they could do was stay out of trouble and bring it home.

Andrew had done a good job of coping with the difficult first few laps, and when his tyres were hot he started to come back with a vengeance from fifth place and attack some of the cars that had passed him early on. He successfully reeled in and passed the Porches of Fisken/Bridgman and Ashburn/Westbrook, to claim third spot, and was then keeping pace with the second place Ferrari of Bateman/Lyons. The leading Audi of Osborne/Brown was, unlike the rest of the front-running pack, being driven by its ‘Pro’, Joe Osborne (a former British GT race-winner in Barwell’s Ginetta-Zytek!), and was thus a fair way in front. Andrew then suffered a quick spin and slipped back behind the Jones twins’ Mercedes, to lie in fourth position as the pit stop/driver change ‘window’ was about to open.

Another man on a charge was Paul Whight, who was absolutely flying on his 2011 race debut once his tyres had joined the party. After receiving the nudge he was carving his way back up the order, and after 40 minutes was back in the lead of the GT3B Class having overtaken the Lamborghini Gallardo of Atkinson/Pickford. His task now was trying to build a gap for Andy Ruhan (freshly crowned as GT Cup Champion) to defend against the Pros in the rival cars. Paul was clearly pushing hard and setting excellent lap times, but as he approached the pit stop period he started to feel unwell. This affected his concentration and unfortunately just one lap away from being in the ‘fuel’ window where he could come in and hand over to Andy, he spun and hit the barriers at Stowe corner. Sadly the damage was sufficient to put the Aston Martin DBRS9 out of the race on the spot, and denied poor Andy a shot at giving Barwell Motorsport a class victory in GT3B.



The Safety Car thus came out whilst they removed Paul’s car from the scene of the crime, and there was a flurry of activity in the pit lane as the field came in to re-fuel, change tyres and swap drivers for the final hour. Jonny Adam thus rejoined the fray in fourth spot, still under the Safety Car conditions, but had a string of backmarkers between him and the third place Mercedes. When the race was restarted he made short work of getting onto the tail of the big German machine, but he now had Westbrook in the Porsche breathing down his neck and had to tackle the notoriously hard-to-pass Jones’ Mercedes quickly. Jonny wasted absolutely no time in out-foxing Jones through the hairpins, however, and proved that you can squeeze two extremely big GT cars alongside each other on one of the tightest parts of the track! The Scotsman then pulled off a beautiful manoeuvre to pass the Bateman/Lyons Ferrari as they blasted into the high-speed Becketts section, before reeling in and overtaking the leading Audi. With just over half an hour to go he had earned himself a four-second gap over the Westbrook/Ashburn Porsche in second, but he never gave the Porsche a sniff of the exhaust of the big Aston as he stretched out his lead to over 20 seconds. So good were the combination of Barwell car set-up and driver that Jonny was able to set fastest overall race sector times during his final few laps!

In the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport GT4 entry, Peter Erceg had shaken off any nerves after his accident the day before, and put in a faultless stint to guide the Aston Martin Vantage through the first half of the race. Tiff took over and also settled into a consistent race pace, but like Peter was also unable to force the replacement machine to get anywhere near the pace of its front-running rivals. The former F1 driver was clearly enjoying his stint behind the wheel, however, and brought the car home for a sixth place points finish.

Barwell Motorsport was back on international racing duty last weekend, when we contested the latest round of the Belcar Championship at Zolder with the ‘Petronas-Barwell’ Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3. With a great set-up on the car and an excellent race strategy in place, we were very well positioned in the race to comfortably take third position and probably secure second, but then the race was stopped prematurely due to a serious incident in the pit lane where a person had been knocked over and injured by a Ferrari during its pit stop. The final results were then declared at this stage, which meant that we were classified in fourth position.

After a successful test day on the Thursday before the race, we knew that we had made good progress with the set-up of the Petronas/Aston Martin Brussels-backed DBRS9, and had better pace around Zolder than at our previous visit in April. We were thus confident of qualifying in the top two rows, and devised a strategy for the Saturday qualifying sessions that would minimise tyre wear on our Michelin rubber and give us tyres in great shape for Sunday’s 125 minute race. After the first 30 minute qualifying session we were satisfied with a strong lap from Jeffrey van Hooydonk that put us third on the grid at that stage, and thus kept to our strategy for the second session. During this Tim Verbergt only did the very minimum number of laps necessary for him to qualify, and circulated at a very sedate pace. For most of the session it looked like we would hang on to third spot, but then late on the Maassen/Longin Audi chipped our time by a mere 16/1000ths of a second!





After the opening lap of the race a Porsche had deposited a large amount of fluids out of its engine onto the race track, and this made for treacherous circuit conditions as it was extremely hard for the drivers (on slick tyres) to judge exactly how much grip they would have both when braking and during cornering. Jeffrey had several lurid moments when the slippery track surface sent the Aston sliding around in unexpected directions, but he managed to keep the big V12-engined machine on the track. Unfortunately the Vanthoor/Wauters Mercedes was not so lucky and suffered a big accident which brought out the Safety Car after only 10 minutes of racing. Jeffrey was running in fourth place at the time, but this was a ‘real’ third as the Maassen/Longin Audi was due to come in for a one-minute penalty due to a regulations infringement by the team on the grid. The Safety Car picked up the three leaders but the time lost behind it for us was minimised by quick thinking from Barwell chief, Mark Lemmer, who brought Jeffrey into the pits as soon as he came round to take one of our mandatory two pit stops.

With the leading Porsche and Mercedes not following this strategy and thus getting caught behind the Safety Car for another lap, we should have leap-frogged them in the running order but unfortunately delays surrounding the driver change (where Jeffrey had to get out and then back in again to continue his stint) cost us valuable time. This kept us behind the Porsche and Mercedes, but also behind the Audi of Verbist/Ide which had started from the pit lane and then had the extreme fortune of being able to come straight into the pits before it got caught behind the Safety Car, thus jumping it up from fifth place straight into the lead.




With the Maassen/Longin Audi having taken its penalty, Jeff thus re-emerged from the pits in fourth place right on the tail of the leading trio of Audi, Porsche and Mercedes. Unfortunately the Kumpen/Wauters Mercedes was now being driven by its amateur pilot, Koen Wauters, and he was clearly holding the Petronas-Barwell Aston up and losing ground to the front two. Koen is a quick amateur driver, however, and the combination of his pace and the strong power and braking ability of the Mercedes meant that Jeffrey just couldn’t find a way past. This was costing us in the region of one second a lap, which Jeffrey proved when the Merc pitted and he instantly lapped quicker with free air in front of him.

With just over 50 minutes to go Jeffrey pitted from third place for a full ‘service’ – re-fuel, four-wheel change and driver change to Tim. With the Kumpen/Wauters Mercedes having now suffered a problem and dropped out of contention, this meant that Tim should have re-joined in third and been able to start attacking the Verbist/Ide Audi for second. A broken right rear wheel nut on the DBRS9 caused a delay with the wheel change, however, and meant that Verbergt came out just under 10 seconds behind the Bouvy/Coens Ford GT in fourth.




A fired up Tim then set about hunting down the Ford, and was absolutely flying as our qualifying strategy was now paying dividends with Verbergt having a lovely fresh set of Michelins at his disposal. He set the second fastest overall race lap as he relentlessly closed down the Ford, which was now visibly on the ragged edge trying to keep our Aston at bay. With just under half an hour of the race to go, Tim had closed to within two seconds of his prey and it would only be a matter of a few laps before we reclaimed third place. By this time, however, the pit lane incident had occurred and once the serious nature of it had been established the event officials stopped the race and declared the result early.

A month after the two French-entered HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DBRS9s saw the flag in the Spa 24 Hours, the team’s cars raced in the French round of the Blancpain Endurance Series on the Magny-Cours circuit. Fred Makowiecki, Gilles Vannelet and Henri Moser came home fifth overall in the general classification in no.4, but no. 3 was badly damaged in an accident after a brake disc shattered when it was in front of its sister car.

Philippe Dumas, the team manager of the French squad, talks about what he has learned from this fourth outing in endurance: “We should have finished this race in fifth and sixth places; we came away with fifth and a huge accident caused by a shattered front brake disc. It’s the first time an incident of this kind has happened on the DBRS9s we’ve been running for five seasons. We’ll have to analyze things very thoroughly. Julien Rodrigues is doing well and that’s the main thing. We finished where we deserved to and the team did an almost perfect job. You must never set yourself unrealistic targets so we can be satisfied with our Magny-Cours weekend. This being said it’s not at all what we wanted. It’s a great experience from a human point of view, but we’re winners and only first place interests us. When we get our hands on a new generation car, we’ll give our rivals something to think about!”

In the wake of the French round, Dumas also has a few comments to make about the Blancpain Endurance Series, the championship launched this year by SRO (Stéphane Ratel Organization). “I believe in this championship as it’s attracted a high level of teams and drivers. But there’s no way this kind of meeting without any real promotion will enhance its reputation. I’m fully behind Stéphane Ratel’s concept of championships, but it’s also necessary to think about the spectators and the media.”

After its fourth top-6 finish in the GT3 Pro Cup category in the same number of endurance races, the whole team is now concentrating on China where round 8 of the FIA GT1 World Championship will take place. “We’re happy to be back with our four great drivers and our two beautiful GT1 Aston Martins. Our aim is to fight to the very end to win the world championship title; we’ve got the car, the team and the drivers to do it. It’s up to us to optimize each detail, and to be even more on the ball to make up for our lack of resources compared to our rivals’. It’s our only weapon, but in the end isn’t it the most important one?”

As the end of the season approaches the strategic aspect assumes considerable importance. What involvement for the future, with which cars and in which championship (s)? “Our team, Hexis Racing, finds itself in an unusual situation, a tricky one even, but not all that disagreeable,” says Dumas. ‘I’ve had a lot of interest from manufacturers for some very exciting programmes. We just have to make the right choice taking into account the sporting and financial aspects, and see a bit further than the end of our nose if we want our small French team to be one of the best on a long-term basis.”

The Total 24 Hours of Spa is Europe’s second most famous and World’s second oldest endurance event. The 63rd edition was HEXIS AMR’s maiden twice-around-the-clock race. The team managed by Philippe Dumas went on to bring its pair of Aston Martins to the finish line, in valuable 8th and 15th positions, far ahead of the other DBRS9s entered. The n°4 car was still a potential podium finisher with two and a half hours to go, after running within the Top 4 for more than ten hours.

The n°3 entry of Yann Clairay, Pierre-Brice Mena and Julien Rodrigues suffered a few problems in early stages after starting from 33rd on the ultra-competitive 62-car grid. Yann Clairay moved up impressively to 8th in his opening double stint, but shortly afterwards, Julien Rodrigues ran straight into the gravel trap at “les Combes” due to a throttle failure. The car dropped to 40th place. A steering wheel problem and a collision at “La Source” hairpin also hampered the trio but then, everything went fine and the Frenchmen recovered to eventually score a strong 8th place overall and 6th in the GT3 Pro Cup class.

A small mistake by the team just before the start of the race could have had big consequences for the n°4 car. Fred Makowiecki nearly lost a front wheel during the warm-up lap. He couldn’t take advantage of his decent 11th place on the grid and had to start from the pitlane. Fred Mako, Henri Moser and Stef Dusseldorp had worked their way up to 4th by mid-distance and further improved to run 3rd until the latter clashed with the n°23 Audi, causing a power steering issue. The team’s effort to repair was rewarded by a 15th place across the line and a third consecutive points finish in the Blancpain Endurance Series.

Fred Mako (France): “Despite its lack of experience in endurance racing, the team did a perfect job in terms of strategy and pitstops. Most people had doubts about the Aston Martin’s reliability, but both cars made it to the finish line. We were P3 at 1pm and the podium was in sight… I am a bit disappointed but we can all be immensely proud of our achievement.”

Henri Moser (Switzerland): “The team worked hard to provide us a fast, consistent and comfortable car. We could avoid trouble until the 22nd hour… See you next year!”

Stef Dusseldorp (The Netherlands): “I feel tired but for my first 24 Hours of Spa, it was really good to experience long stints and driving in the night. We came a long way thanks to fast driving and good teamwork, it was great until this contact with the United Autosport Audi. It was the beginning of some trouble and we finished P15. I am happy to make it to the end, but it’s a shame to miss out on the podium.”

Yann Clairay (France): “Honestly the team deserves great respect after the enormous work they have done, the final result is far beyond our expectations. We only suffered minor technical problems. It’s been a tough race because we don’t have as many driver assistance systems as the most recent cars have.”

Pierre-Brice Mena (France): “I was well prepared but I must admit it was difficult. I want to thank the team, finishing in the Top 10 is nothing to be ashamed of in such a great race, with so many factory-supported cars on the grid.”

Julien Rodrigues (France): “We were not among the favourites so the result is a little bit of a surprise. The HEXIS AMR team worked hard over the past three months to impress in its first 24-hour race and it paid dividends.”

Clément Mateu, development manager: “I have mixed feelings because we lost the podium, but our two cars finished, and we played a part in a tough battle against experienced, highly-competitive and factory-backed teams.”

Philippe Dumas, team-manager: “I am very disappointed and very happy at the same time, but above all I am proud of what we’ve achieved together. We came with the aim to finish, we’ll be back for more, we’ll come back to win.”

HEXIS AMR is now looking forward to racing on home soil at Magny-Cours. Round 4 of the Blancpain Endurance Series will take place on 27th August.

Team’s website: www.hexis-amr.com Blancpain Endurance Series news, results, points, video: www.blancpain-endurance-series.com

Legendary Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse has made its sportscar return at iconic Belgian circuit Spa-Francorchamps, enjoying an encouraging qualifying session for tomorrow’s Total 24 Hours of Spa.

Contesting the event in conjunction with Aston Martin Racing Partner Team Barwell Motorsport, drivers Alasdair McCaig, Andrew Smith, Joe Twyman and Oliver Bryant quickly acclimatised the updated GT3-spec DBRS9, which bares the iconic Saltire livery first made famous by Ecurie Ecosse’s Le Mans 24 Hours triumphs of 1956 and 1957.

Faced with the sort of challenging weather conditions the Belgian venue is notorious for, the team took a satisfying mid-pack qualifying result, claiming 15th in class and 31st overall on the 62-car grid, ahead of several big name teams and drivers. Ollie Bryant was the man to set the time, keeping his cool with a slick-shod car on a damp circuit.

With dry running forecast for this weekend’s twice-around-the-clock event Ecurie Ecosse have high hopes of scoring a strong result, with Avon’s slick tyres proving extremely durable so far. But, with 24 hours of racing still ahead of them, the team is naturally focused on running at a solid pace and bringing the car home.

Hugh McCaig, Team Boss: “We're pleased with what’s been achieved today. To be ahead of all three McLaren cars and in such difficult conditions is very satisfying. We've taken a measured approach through practice, and the drivers have adjusted well to the car. Tomorrow it's a case of keeping it on the black stuff, being sensible and getting to the flag.”

Alastair McCaig: “First of all, it's great to be here and to be racing in the Ecurie Ecosse colours – there’s a real sense of pride throughout the team. On track, everyone has settled in to the car and coped well with driving in the dark and in wet, misty conditions, so there's a lot to be positive about. Whatever the weather brings we'll aim to settle into a rhythm, work our way up the order and run a steady race.”

Joe Twyman: “It's fair to say that the conditions have been a challenge but the tyres worked well on a damp track and Ollie pulled out a great final lap late in qualifying. The level of interest in Ecurie Ecosse's return has been amazing - we've been adding sponsorship to the car since we arrived at the circuit! I hope we can repay everyone’s hard work and support with a good result on Sunday.”​

Ollie Bryant: “Finding a rhythm was difficult as the red flags made the session very stop-start. At the end I had just one lap to improve but had to play it relatively safe on the slick tyres as the track was still damp. There’s a lot more time in the car, but I’m still very pleased with the effort we put in today. I will be starting the race tomorrow, and with drier conditions I believe we can make real progress.”

Andrew Smith: “It's fantastic to be here and competing after the effort that’s gone in to getting the team on track. The weather has been a challenge, but we've coped well even when the going has been very rough. The car is in great shape, particularly for dry conditions, and I can't wait to get my stint underway tomorrow.”

This year’s Total 24 Hours of Spa will be broadcast live on Motors TV across Europe throughout the weekend of July 30/31 (check local listings for times), while www.RadioLeMans.com will also provide live commentary of every session from the event.

Legendary Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse is all set to make its competitive sportscar return for the first time in two decades next weekend (July 30/31) when its newly Saltire-liveried Aston Martin DBRS9 heads to Belgium for The Total 24 Hours of Spa.
It will be the first time the 1956 and ’57 Le Mans 24 Hours winners have competed in a twice-round-the-clock endurance event since running a Vauxhall Cavalier GSi at Spa-Francorchamps in 1993.

18 years on Ecurie Ecosse return to the iconic Ardennes circuit with highly experienced and successful Aston Martin Racing Partner Team Barwell Motorsport, who have been sub-contracted to run the GT3-spec DBRS9 for driver line-up Alasdair McCaig, Andrew Smith, Joe Twyman and Oliver Bryant.

All four drivers utilised their extensive experience of Spa when sampling the car for the first time at the event’s official test on July 6 where a day’s trouble-free running helped them acclimatise to the 2011-specification updates and Avon tyres.

Spa has proven a happy hunting ground for Ecurie Ecosse in the past with their 1986 Group C2 World Sportscar Championship victory an undoubted highlight. Team boss Hugh McCaig, who oversaw that first return to international competition in the 1980s, said:

“Spa holds great memories for me and Ecurie Ecosse because our victory there contributed towards us winning the 1986 World Championship. We’ve also done the 24 hour race of course so although it’s been almost 20 years, this isn’t a complete leap into the unknown. It’s worth mentioning that the four guys have been the real driving force behind this project. I can’t emphasise enough how hard they’ve worked bringing the likes of Barwell Motorsport and key sponsors onboard who all understand Ecurie Ecosse’s significant heritage. But we remain realistic and appreciate the strength and depth in the GT3 ranks this year. Getting to the finish would be a fantastic achievement in itself.”

Twyman meanwhile is also no stranger to the rigours of Spa’s 24 hour enduro having won the GT4 class, also with Aston Martin, as part of Jota Sport AMR’s assault there last season.

“The test earlier this month went really well and we were all delighted with the car’s pace straight out of the box. This year’s race is going to be exceptionally tough with so many top teams from the Blancpain Endurance Series, as well as those like us making one-off appearances, sharing the same track. There are few teams with better knowledge of the DBRS9 than Barwell Motorsport so I’m confident that we stand a great chance of making the finish, which is our main goal.”

Since announcing their return in February, the team has been busy finalising its plans to contest one of world motorsport’s most prestigious events by bringing onboard a host of partners, including the Cayman Islands’ luxury boutique hotelier Cotton Tree, Motor Sport Magazine, Uluvka Vodka and specialist motorsport employment agency TechnoRecruit who, along with many others, have helped make possible Ecurie Ecosse’s long-awaited comeback.

This year’s Total Spa 24 Hours will be broadcast live on Motors TV across Europe throughout the weekend of July 30/31 (check local listings for times), while www.RadioLeMans.com will also provide live commentary of every session from the event.

Ecurie Ecosse have released the first images of the teams 2011 Spa 24h challenger. The Scottish team will field a solo Aston Martin DBRS9 in this years Belgian enduro.

The Barwell-run Aston Martin will be driven by Andrew Smith, Alasdair McCaig, Joe Twyman & Oliver Bryant.







Images: Ecurie Ecosse

- Barwell’s Aston Martin Vantage claims GT4 podium in race two
- Barwell-engineered Beechdean DBRS9 scores 3rd place overall


The latest round of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship took place at the Spa-Francorchamps F1 track in Belgium last weekend, with two one-hour races on the Saturday. The Barwell Motorsport-run Aston Martin Vantage GT4 was having its second outing in the series, with drivers Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes tasting the podium champagne for the first time after a great run to third place in GT4 in race two. We also shared in the overall GT3 podium success in this race, with Barwell’s Mark Lemmer engineering the Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9 to another third place finish for drivers Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.

The Vantage GT4, entered under the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport banner, was one of the front-runners in the GT4 class from the very start of the Friday practice sessions. With the team using their first race at Brands Hatch in June really as a learning event, we were able to hit the ground running at Spa. Despite Chris never having been to the daunting seven-kilometre Spa circuit before, he quickly got to grips with its flowing high-speed turns, and was setting some very rapid lap times in the Aston Martin. This was no mean feat last weekend, as the British GT regulars were joined by both the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge and European GT4 Championship series competitors, swelling the number of cars on the track to 55! Peter was also bringing his times down well during the practice sessions, as he got to grips with the 450bhp Aston Martin Vantage GT4. The Kiwi driver carried this through to the first official qualifying session, qualifying sixth in GT4 for race one, whilst Chris was confident of fighting for pole position in his session. After a ‘banker’ lap warming up his tyres, he then attacked and set his best first sector time of the weekend but the lap was scuppered by the red flags coming out and stopping the session. His banker time was good enough for fourth, but if he had been able to complete his fastest lap then pole or second position was certainly on.


For the Beechdean GT3 entry, we were also supplying senior Barwell technician Mike Brown to boost their crew looking after the mechanical well-being of the car. He and Mark were working hard during the free practice sessions, when they made quite a few significant set-up changes to the DBRS9, which was then able to pump in consistently fast times over long runs. Unfortunately official qualifying didn’t go according to plan, with neither driver able to realise their true potential. In the amateur session Andrew hit traffic on all of his laps and was disappointed to line up 10th, whilst just as Jonny got his hard compound Avons (for the DBRS9) up to temperature he got badly blocked on one lap and then the red flags came out and restricted him to ninth on the grid for race two.

For this event there were two one-hour points scoring races for British GT, with each driver starting one race – the amateurs would start race one and the pros race two. Peter started race one and settled into a good rhythm, but as he was passing a slower Ginetta in the European GT4 series contact was made and he was worried that the car had been damaged. He carried on for a few more laps without any further dramas, until he came in to hand over to Chris midway through the race. Unfortunately the Safety Car came out and Peter got baulked behind it for half a lap before he got to the pits, and then during the stop the Barwell crew spotted that a wheel had been damaged during his earlier clash and it had to be changed. We thus lost a chunk of time to the pack ahead, but Chris did a good job in closing down the GT4 championship-leading KTM of Belshaw/Clutton and finished sixth just eight seconds behind at the end.

At the start of the race Andrew began to get stuck into chasing down the top 10 GT3 pack, and had picked off two of them by the time he came in for the mandatory driver change pit stop just before the half way stage. At this point the Safety Car was out to control the field, and thus we took advantage of this and also during the stop Mark’s attention to detail over the mandatory pit lane time paid off and we managed to jump one place up the order. Jonny thus came out in seventh place and set a scorching pace as he closed in on the leaders and moved up to fifth position. He closed down the fourth placed Tate/Mortimer Ferrari to just 0.8 seconds by the finish, and with one more lap would surely have taken this place.


Chris made a strong start to the second one-hour encounter, and was immediately right on the tail of the front three British GT4 contenders and hounding the two factory Lotus Evoras in front. The pace of these four was incredibly hot, and they left the rest of the GT4 field trailing in their wake. Chris was driving the wheels off the Barwell Aston Martin, and moved up the order as the cars ahead progressively came into the pits for their driver changes before us. Chris got his head down and tried to press home the advantage of having a clear track before coming in to hand over to Peter. This worked really well and with the pit lane timings worked out to perfection, Peter was able to blast out of the pits in the lead of the GT4 class – in only his second ever event at international level!

However, with the four cars behind him all sporting a ‘double-pro’ driver line-up, he was going to have his work cut out to try and defend the position. We lost one of the opposition when the Nordstrom/Clarke Lotus fell by the wayside, but Peter lost out in the heat of battle to the Denis/McDonald Ginetta and the sister Lotus of Glew/Jackson. As the race entered its closing stages he was holding onto third place well, and setting good lap times, but a small mistake let the KTM sneak past and with the tyres and brakes now past their best it looked like he would have to settle for fourth. The leading Ginetta struck trouble two laps from home, however, and the Barwell Aston’s great reliability thus enabled Peter to benefit and take a very well-deserved third place and first-ever British GT podium for Erceg, Holmes and the Secure Racing with Barwell Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT4. “It was a fantastic result for the team,” said Peter afterwards, “To be on the podium, in an Aston Martin, at Spa and in only our 2nd round of the British GT Championship, it doesn't get much better than that!”

Jonny had done a great job in getting heat into his Avon tyres on the Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9 during the warm-up lap for the start of race two, and was then able to really attack his rivals as soon as the lights went to green. Such was his pace and confidence on the opening lap that he moved up from ninth to sixth and was right on the leading bunch of cars! Belying the fact that this was his first ever visit to Spa, he then proceeded to get stuck into a three-way scrap for fourth place, which he soon came out on top of. He subsequently fell foul of some oil dropped on the track at Les Combes corner and slide wide, slipping back down to sixth again, before making one place back prior to coming into the pits!

Another precisely timed pit lane visit put Andrew back out into the race in second position, behind the leading Ferrari 458 of Cameron/Griffin and just ahead of the Fisken/Bridgman Porsche. These three then pulled out a big gap over the rest of the pack as they put on a great fight for the race victory. With two laps to go Fisken managed to push Andrew’s Aston down to third, but the Beechdean man stayed on his bumper and the three lead cars started the final lap with less than two seconds separating them! Unfortunately slower traffic got in the way of the tussle, but Andrew brought the car home for a superb third place finish. “This was a terrific result in what is one of the oldest GT3 cars in the world,” commented Mark Lemmer. “I was extremely happy with the set-up that we got on the car and the Avon tyres worked really well in the race.”

Barwell Motorsport is extremely disappointed to have to announce that it has been left with no choice but to withdraw the Petronas-Barwell Aston Martin DBRS9 entry from this year’s Total 24 Hours of Spa, due to Michelin tyre supply issues. We originally informed Michelin in February of this year that we would be running this car at Spa and that we would require tyre supply, but were then shocked to be told for the first time on June 18th that there was a problem with supply and that there was a shortage of tyres. This meant that Michelin could now only supply their Blancpain Championship full season entrants, and not cars contesting the 24 Hours as a ‘one-off’. The withdrawal of this car is devastating news for all at Barwell Motorsport, as we have been working for 10 months to put the deal together to run this car with a top driver line-up and thus put ourselves in a good position to challenge for an outright podium result.

Since we were told this news by Michelin we have been trying every possible way of attempting to rescue this situation, but sadly to no avail. With time running out before the July 30/31 event, the key partners in the Petronas-Barwell entry, including backers Petronas, Aston Martin Brussels and drivers Jeffrey Van Hooydonk and Tim Verbergt, have made the decision to withdraw from the event and concentrate on their challenge for the Belcar Endurance Championship (BEC) title. Jeffrey and Tim are currently lying second in this championship, and the Petronas-Barwell team can now switch its attentions to running the Aston Martin DBRS9 in the Zolder 24 Hours on September 3/4, which is a double-points scoring event for the BEC.

“This comes as a massive disappointment to us as the Spa 24 Hours is Barwell’s blue chip event of the year,“ says Barwell Motorsport MD, Mark Lemmer. “It is absolutely of no consolation that there are currently approximately another 15 cars entered for the race that are in the same boat with the tyre supply situation.”

Barwell Motorsport will still be running the Ecurie Ecosse Aston Martin DBRS9 entry in the Spa 24 Hours event, which will be fielded in the Pro-Am Class for drivers Andrew Smith, Olly Bryant, Alasdair McCaig and Joe Twyman. This car will run on Avon tyres. “We know Avon well from the British GT Championship, and during the past two years they have been very pro-active in developing a suitable and highly competitive tyre for the DBRS9” comments Lemmer. “Avon are being extremely supportive of our Spa 24 Hour plans with the Ecurie Ecosse car, and we are confident of a strong challenge for the Pro-Am victory.”

Our first British GT outing of 2011 was Round 2 (we didn't go to the first round at Oulton Park). This was a 120 minute, single pit-stop round on the new Snetterton 300 Circuit in Norfolk.

As last year, the Vantage Racing car is our DBRS9 GT3 which will be driven by Tom Black and Stuart Hall in three of the six rounds. Although there are several newer cars on the grid, our performance in early season testing had given us confidence that we could put up a strong showing. We lost the first Saturday practice session to a broken drive shaft and the very changeable weather conditions for the second session meant that we had numerous changes from slicks to wets and very limited time in the car as a result. Despite this, Stuart qualified us in fourth place in an impressive 1:51.8, behind the CRS Racing Ferrari 458, the United Autosports Audi R8 and Hector Lester's Ferrari 430 Scuderia.

In the race, we ran a contrarian strategy, putting our pro driver out first, in contrast to most other teams who kept the best for last. Stuart quickly took advantage of the less experienced drivers around him and went from P4 to P1 on the first lap. He then set about building up an impressive lead of over 7 seconds which, unfortunately, was eliminated by a safety car on Lap 10 following a nasty collision between the two Trackspeed Porsche 997 GT3Rs which saw them both retire. As a result of the long safety car, our lead was only 1.6s by the time Stuart pitted on Lap 30.

After a faultless pit-stop Tom took over in P7 and quickly found himself under assault from the impressive field. Despite falling back to P8 on Lap 35, he had recovered to P7 by Lap 44 and had managed a string of laps around 1:58, comfortably ahead of his best in practice. With 30 minutes to go we were beginning to look fairly solid in P7 when our luck changed. Tom was involved in a collision with Mat Griffin's Ferrari 458 which resulted in his retirement with suspension damage. Although not the result we had hoped for, we did put up a very respectable performance on which we should be able to build at Brands Hatch on 19th June.

Image copyright Richard Leach

The first 2011 International GT Open race will take place in Italy this weekend at the legendary Imola circuit. This year it will be followed by eight events on the best European tracks where top racing teams will fight for victory with the most prestigious GT cars.

In the extremely competitive GTS category the Villois Team will campaign the Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3 #15 driven by Italian drivers Lancieri and Wiser who will attempt
to take the driver championship.

The Vantage GT2 schedule is still in question. The decision has been taken not to enter it at race one with a 2011 debut at Magny Coursa a distinct possibility.

All the race weekend will be streamed live on www.gtsport.es at page ‘time keeping
live’. On TV you can follow the race on the Italian cable/satellite channel Nuvolari (144).
Last year successful cooperation between Villois Racing and Primocanalesport led to the
decision to broadcast the full season live with the commentary of two well known motorsport experts, Giuseppe Sciortino and Roberto Cinquanta. To enjoy this experience you can tune on the Sky satellite channel Primocanalesport 595.


Friday:
Practice 1 10.20 - 11.20
Practice 2 14.20 - 15.20

Saturday:
Qualify 1 09.35 - 09.55
Qualify 2 12.00 - 12.20
Pro-Am Race 15.00 (Live TV)

Sunday: GT Race 12.50 (Live TV)
(Central European Times)

Beechdean Motorsport collected their first podium of the season in the opening round of the British GT Championship at Oulton Park with Andrew Howard and Jonathan Adam finishing third in their Aston Martin DBRS9.

After losing 5th place at the start to the Trackspeed Porsche of Gregor Fisken Andrew Howard kept pace with the lead group and gained on the No2 Porsche before handing over to Jonathan Adam at pit stops.

Jonathan was immediately up to speed and closed on the Porsche now driven by Tim Bridgman who was himself embroiled in a battle for 3rd with the Jones brother's Mercedes AMG SLS. The trio were nose to tail until Bridgman went off allowing Adam to move up to 4th position and start chasing down the Mercedes and subsequently passing the silver car two laps later. Jonathan then managed to see off the challenge from Allan Simonsen in the Rosso Verde Ferrari 430 Scuderia to claim the final place on the podium.



The celebrations were short lived, as the Aston Martin engine let go in a cloud of smoke as the Scott crossed the line meaning the team would take no further part in the weekends action.

“The car was getting slower in a straight line and the noise from the engine was getting worse,” said Adam. “Then as I crossed the line, it just let go in a cloud of smoke. That’s disappointing for us, but at the same time, it’s great to start the year on the podium as there are circuits coming up that will be better suited to the car.”

The British GT championship resumes 5th May at Snetterton where Beechdean will be joind by two more Aston Martins. 22GT with their DBRS9 in GT3B and Secure Racing with the Vantage GT4.

JT

A mere week after the opening round of the Belcar Endurance Championship at Circuit Zolder, the GPR Aston Martin Racing team headed off for the Monza park to compete in the now already renowned Blancpain Endurance Series, a competition with as its highpoint the 24 Hours of Spa being held at the end of July. On Italian soil the Aston Martin DBRS9 bearing the colours of Aston Martin Antwerp-Michiels, Creaset, HYT and Gulf was in the hands of Ludovic Sougnez, back on the international scene, Eddy Renard and Christian Kelders.

And straightaway the Belgian team were taken in by the atmosphere of this Blancpain series and its immediate success ... "This is truly a great championship, and competing in it we find ourselves amongst the top players, Pino Sperlinga explained. An extra hour of free practice might not have gone amiss on this track we're discovering, but everyone is in the same boat. On top of that there's a friendly atmosphere amongst the various teams."

Not having tested previously on the Monza circuit, the GPR AMR took full advantage of the two hours of free practice on the Saturday, but also the qualifying sessions in order to prepare the Aston Martin DBRS9 for the three hour long race on the Sunday. « We were somewhat lacking in mileage to hope for any brilliant results during the official session, but as we soon noticed that delay was immediately reduced once the start had been given, Eddy Renard commented. I clocked up my best personal lap time during my race stint. Our climb up through the pack was quite spectacular and even though we just missed out on a podium place in Pro-Am, our 7th place overall undoubtedly reveals the potential of this Aston."

Apart from a few annoyances with the brakes, the DBRS9 driven by Sougnez, Renard and Kelders ran like clockwork during the entire 180 minutes, where others fell by the wayside due to lack of reliability ... « I believe that by finishing the race at Monza, where we only discovered the track's subtleties during a mere two days, in 7th place overall and 4th in the Pro-Am and coming out as the top Aston Martin, we can be truly satisfied with this great start, is how Ludovic Sougnez summed up the race. The latter took the first stint, and having started from 22nd place on the grid he drove a splendid race to bring the car up into the top 10 overall in just one hour. We need to continue concentrating on the work, and with that in mind we will be at Zolder this coming Thursday to carry on with the car's development. But I feel really at home with this team and in this brand new Blancpain Endurance Series. It looks promising ... "

We should also mention that at Monza, GPR Aston Martin Racing had entered a Vantage GT4 for the Italian pair Sanguiolo, De Pasquale, as also the Swiss driver Vernet. Although still awaiting the 2011 evolutions this car still took the chequered flag in 5th place in the GT4 class, definitely another promising start.

The sprint of the beginning of this season now follows on for the Pino Sperlinga outfit, which will be travelling back from Italy to head for the Belgian Limburg, where the second round of the Belcar takes place this coming weekend, within the framework of the prestigious World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). This time around the race is over two hours, and the Aston Martin GPR AMR, to be driven by Henri Moser and Michaël Schmetz, has every intention of aiming for an overall podium place.

Barwell Motorsport kicked off the 2011 race season in fine style at the weekend, with a fighting 3rd place podium finish in the opening round of the Belgian Belcar Endurance Championship at Zolder. The team’s Aston Martin DBRS9, run under the banner of Petronas-Barwell Racing and driven by Tim Verbergt and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk, was in the hunt for a top three finish throughout the race despite a clutch problem. The Barwell-run Aston then claimed the final podium slot in the final 20 minutes of the three hour encounter, much to the delight of new team partners, Petronas Lubricants Belgium and Aston Martin Brussels. It also marked the fifth podium finish in a row for Barwell Motorsport, continuing the run started in September last year in British GT, Britcar GT and Spanish GT events.

This result was just desserts for the hard-working Barwell engineers and crew, who had only received the new 2011 Aston Martin Racing aero bodywork upgrades just days before the start of the race meeting. We thus only had the one hour free practice session on Friday to work on the set-up of the new-look DBRS9 and try to optimise its performance, before Saturday’s qualifying sessions. By qualifying we were reasonably satisfied with the work we had done, and the stopwatch proved that the upgrades have been a step forward for the DBRS9, which is one of the very original GT3 designs and now entering its sixth season of competition!

Even with the upgrades we know that we are facing a tough battle against the ‘new age’ GT3 machines from Audi, Ford, Porsche and Mercedes in the highly competitive Belcar GT3 field, and to heighten the challenge further Zolder is not a track that plays to the ‘high-downforce’ strengths of the big V12 6-litre Aston. Jeffrey Van Hooydonk then caught everyone by surprise (including us!), however, when he hauled the 600bhp beast around in 1m31.5s to take provisional pole position after the first qualifying session! This was 1.5 seconds quicker than we had ever been at Zolder, and all the more impressive given that this year’s Michelin Belcar tyre is a harder compound than we had used in previous years. With the second 30-minute session still to come, though, we were expecting a big challenge to this from the German marques. With a very good time in the bag we chose to focus on the race set up during second qualifying, rather than chase a slight improvement on our single lap qualifying time. Unfortunately we did get bumped by the Audi of Maassen/Longin, the Merc of Kumpen/K.Wauters and the Porsche of Soulet/Goossens, but still ended up 4th and only half a second shy of the pole time, which is as close as we have been at Zolder.

Tim Verbergt took the start of Sunday’s 3-hour race (with three mandatory pit stops to be carried out), but as is quite common around the tight confines of the Zolder track there was a lot of nudging and jostling for position going on as the field blasted down the start/finish straight. Tim got a couple of knocks from the cars around him during the first lap, one being a pretty hard whack in the driver’s side door and he also received another in the left rear. This caused him quite a big ‘moment’ and as he lost momentum both the Audi of Verbist/Ide and the Ford GT of Palttala/Kuismanen slipped past. Verbergt was soon back up to fifth spot when the Ford hit problems early on and pitted, and he then became embroiled in a close tussle with the rival Aston Martin DBRS9 of Moser/Schmetz. This lasted for many laps, with the Moser-driven machine seeming to have an advantage under braking which raised our suspicions that it was running the ‘sprint’ spec front brake pads (as opposed to the ‘endurance’ ones on our car), and thus we would be expecting it to run into braking difficulties later in the race. Tim thus didn’t lose time fighting Moser and settled back into sixth spot, concentrating on getting into a good rhythm to complete his stint after the first lap argy-bargy and worrying knock in the side.

Our first pit stop at 45 minutes went absolutely like clockwork, with a re-fuel, change of all four tyres and Jeff replacing Tim at the wheel. Soon sixth place became fifth as the Verbist/Ide Audi hit trouble, and Jeff set about chasing the other Aston which now had Schmetz at the controls. With Schmetz being slightly slower than Moser, Jeff was able to close on him a little bit lap by lap, and the inter-Aston Martin battle started to intensify! As he closed to within pouncing distance from his prey, however, Jeff radioed in to say that he had lost the operation of the clutch and was having to shift down through the gears without using it. This was not only hampering his lap times a little bit, but also presented us with a problem at the pit stops in terms of the car departing from its stationary position. Despite all of this, Jeff drove an excellent stint (posting a best lap time only 3/10ths of a second slower than the race winner) and brought the car in for our second scheduled stop just after the 90 minute mark.

The solution for the pit stop was for the driver to select neutral, fire the engine up and then the rules allowed us to push him away from the pit stop position for a few yards until the car was rolling and he could bang it into first gear. Without the clutch it is quite hard for a fully strapped in driver to select neutral on the sequential gear lever, however, and thus after re-fuelling and changing tyres (once again carried out with ruthless efficiency by the Barwell crew) one of our guys had to open the door of the car and help Tim physically get the lever into the neutral position. This all cost us quite a few precious seconds, but with the Moser/Schmetz machine suffering its own time delays in their stop, we still came out ahead and moved up to fourth place as the race entered its second half.

Again our attentions were immediately focused on the tussle over who would come out as top Aston Martin, as we were beginning to lose sight of the top three runners who had been setting a very hot pace in the first hour and then pulled further ahead by not having to take on board so

much fuel at the stops (due to enjoying better fuel consumption). However our pace was still
good enough that a small problem for the Porsche, Audi or Merc ahead could put us in a
position to threaten the German top three lock-out. Back in the battle of the British 6-litre V12s, Moser was again able to close on Tim and soon there was virtually an eight-wheel 12-litre V24 DBRS9 running on the track, as our rival was all but glued to the bumper of the Petronas-Barwell car for three laps! We stuck to our belief that they would soon encounter some brake issues, and again Tim didn’t resist the pass from Moser but concentrated on his own stint where he also had to get used to not being able to use the clutch. He soon got to grips with the problem and set some very good lap times during his second stint, during which he was able to keep the Moser-driven Aston in his sights and thus set Jeff up very well to take fourth spot back during his final race run.

With 40 minutes remaining Tim came in for the final scheduled stop, where we would fuel the car to finish the race and just change the front tyres. Jeff hopped in and this time we had the re-start routine finely tuned, as the car was returned to the fray with minimum fuss. After our stop we looked up the pit lane and saw the Moser/Schmetz Aston (which had pitted before us) still sitting outside its garage and receiving some serious attention from its mechanics. It remained there for a few more laps, apparently having suffered from brake problems....

With the Aston Martin ‘Challenge’ now over, Jeff was able to concentrate on keeping up a good pace in fourth spot and looking after the car for the final 40 minutes, as the fifth-placed Ford GT was two laps back and not a threat and the Mercedes of Kumpen/K.Wauters in third was too far ahead for him to catch purely on pace. With just over 20 minutes to go, however, the Merc was in the pits for an unscheduled visit and all eyes from the Petronas-Barwell camp were trained on their pit area. It didn’t stay in long enough for Jeff to pass it on the track, though, but there was still a chance that they had a problem that could allow us to close. We didn’t have to wait long for the answer to this, as half way round its next lap the TV screens showed the Mercedes SLS parked by the side of the track with only three wheels still attached. Jeff thus assumed third position, and with it the Barwell podium run was kept alive!