Having revealed just the one driver at the time of their confirmation of acceptance into Season 12 of the World Endurance Championship back in late November last year, the Japanese based team today confirmed the remaining detail for the Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 entry this year.

As previously hinted at the end of last season, both Team Manager Tomonobu Fujii and team owner Satoshi Hoshino both take a step back from racing duties as Marco Sorensen will be joined by French drivers Erwan Bastard and Clement Mateu for the eight round 2024 season with the exception of the Le Mans 24hr in June.

As the COVID-19 global lockdown continues into yet another week here in the UK, in-between our own assigned 'chores' at home we have now had a bit of time to trawl through first of our many portable hard drives to start coming up with some more galleries of a 'more historical' Aston Martin Racing customer team nature for your perusal.

Not listed in any particular order of race event sequence, our journey appears to have started (to a limited degree) at the FIA GT1 World Championship from Silverstone in 2010 where of course the Aston Martin DBR9 was the 'weapon of choice' for both the Hexis Racing and Fischer Racing (Young Driver AMR) teams. Most of these shots were taken from public viewing areas at both Silverstone and Snetterton circuits.

We are using AMR's blue logo above as our continued support for the health and welfare services around the globe as the Coronavirus threat is been fought off too many times over on a daily basis.







Hexis AMR then went on to compete within the new Blancpain Endurance Series with the new DBRS9 GT3 variant at this final round of the season from Silverstone in 2011.









Back home in the UK, teams like Barwell, Vantage Racing and Beechdean Motorsports also entered the new DBRS9 into the British GT Championship in both 2010 and 2011 respectively.













End.

GT1 World Champions HEXIS AMR relive their epic 2011 season which saw them take the Teams Championship in the final race.

This evening a French team is FIA GT1 world champion! A young squad full of talent and enthusiastic squad which has given its all right till the very end. In 2009, it was the European GT3 Champion. Last year it was runner-up in the FIA GT1 World Championship and this season HEXIS AMR has won a world title for which four teams were still in the running before the final 60-minutes’ racing got under way.

The overall situation didn’t look too good on Saturday evening after the qualifying event. Neither of the two HEXIS AMR DB9 Aston Martins had scored a point. No. 3 finished eighth and no. 4 was only fourteenth. They started Sunday’s race from these unfavourable places on the grid. Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp fought their way up to third, and in the second car Christian Hohenadel and Andrea Piccini snatched a crucial fifth place. The Italo-German duo finished third in the drivers’ world championship ratings.
It would take a whole book to tell the story of the ups and downs of the Argentinean round! All the more so as the title battle was decided not only in Potrero de los Funes, but also in the twenty hotly-disputed races in nine countries on three continents. To really see what happened and relive the thrills and spills of the round that decided it all on Sunday, go to the GT1 TV site where the race is available on streaming – www.gt1world.com/gt1tv . Today, a phrase sums up everything: despite all the traps on a layout like no other in the world and despite the burning determination of their rivals, the drivers and staff of the HEXIS AMR team have pulled off an impossible feat – they are the WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Here are the first comments from team manager, Philippe Dumas: “It’s totally unbelievable, totally fantastic. The whole paddock seems pleased that we’re the FIA GT1 World Champions. That means we must deserve it! We’ve followed in the footsteps of a great team, Vitaphone, which enjoyed a long reign. The suspense lasted right down to the wire. I’m still thinking of all the stress you have to cope with, as in my position you not only have to look after the sporting and technical side, but also a whole host of other details – the budget, the strategy for the future of the team, the daily round, etc. The only thing that keeps us going is the hope of results like this one. But I have to admit that yesterday I was feeling pretty downcast because I didn’t see how things could turn out well - but you have to keep on believing that they will. What we’re experiencing this evening is simply magic!”


The heroes will take off for France today, Monday, at midday local time (16h00 in France). We will come back to their incredible saga in a newsletter in the near future.

FIA GT1 World Championship– final standings

Teams :
1 Hexis AMR (Aston Martin) 235, WORLD CHAMPION
2 JR Motorsports (Nissan) 232
3 Young Driver AMR (Aston Martin) 231
4 All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport (Lamborghini) 190
5. Sumo Power GT (Nissan) 154

HEXIS AMR was on the podium in Ordos and it looked like the team was going to score its third victory of the season in the rain in Peking. But with only six minutes to go to the chequered flag, the team’s hopes were brutally dashed. The French squad still has a chance of winning the world title in Argentina. It will go for bust on the circuit where it made its mark on the grand touring scene in 2010.

The FIA GT1 World Championship played its role as ambassador for motor racing in China to the hilt. It began in Ordos in Inner Mongolia, and then continued in Goldenport Park in Peking finishing in the streets in the capital of the Popular Chinese Republic around the site of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Ordos, no. 3 P3, No. 4 P4

20.000 spectators massed on the new Ordos circuit 50 kilometers from the mausoleum of Gengis Khan. They saw the two HEXIS AMR cars fighting their way to the front in the championship event after an excellent performance in the qualifying race. Piccione-Dusseldorp and Hohenadel-Piccini finished in third and fourth places bagging a big haul of points in the teams’ championship title chase. The stunning performances on the track were matched in the pits as no. 4 had the best pit stop time in the qualifying race, and the team then set the two fastest times in the championship round.

Hopes brutally dashed in Peking

The GTI TV commentators were right when they said that the short Goldenport Park layout was a circuit of the old school. After the brilliant sunshine of the first day, the two races on Saturday were run in persistent rain. The two HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DBRS9s adapted to the conditions without problems. Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp used the 60-minute qualification race to fight their way up from seventeenth to fifth place. Andrea Piccini and Christian Hohenadel jumped from tenth on the grid to third at the chequered flag. In the pits, the mechanics performed another miracle - the tyre change on no. 4 was 2.7s quicker than all its rivals! The team lost one of its cars at the start of the championship race, when Dusseldorp ended up in the gravel trap in corner number one. Hohenadel did a superb stint in third place. The best pit stop of the whole field put Piccini into the lead, and the Italian proved that the HEXIS AMR Aston Martin was the fastest car in the very wet conditions by pulling out a lead of more than three seconds over his rivals. Unfortunately, he went off five laps from the finish just when two corners further on, the safety car was preparing to neutralize the race until the end.

Philippe Dumas: “the best team in the world”

On the evening of the event, Philippe Dumas, the team manger, stressed the excellent quality of the performance of his troops, and refused to lay the blame on the drivers who were caught out on the Chinese skating rink. “I think we again showed that we’re the best team in the world no matter what the conditions. I’m just very sad for us all and for my four drivers. Life sometimes springs unexpected surprises but that’s what sport’s all about. Although we’ve just taken a whack on the head, that doesn’t mean that we won’t continue fighting till the end. We still have a slight chance of being world champions, and all together we’ll battle against the forces of destiny until the last lap, the last corner on the San Luis circuit!”

For the honour…

On Sunday evening, the FIA GTI World Championship teams put on a nighttime demonstration race between the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube where the Olympic events took place in 2008. The teams also took part in a tyre changing competition – and guess who won? Rendezvous in Argentina on 5th-6th November for the final round of what has been a thrilling world championship so far.

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

Spa 24 Hours - AMR Teams - Images by xynamic.com

This weekend six Aston Martins will line up on the starting grid at Spa-Francorchamps for the Total 24 hours of Spa race, part of the Blancpain Endurance series. Four Aston Martin teams including Hexis AMR, GPR AMR, Ecurie Ecosse and Speed Lover will battle for 24 gruelling hours on the famous road circuit.




Official partner team Hexis AMR, who also compete in the FIA GT1 World Championship, will enter two GT3 DBRS9s in the Pro-Cup category. The number 3 car will be driven by French drivers; Pierre Brice Mena, Julien Rodrigues and Yann Clairay while the number 4 car will be driven by Henri Moser (CH), Stef Dusseldorp (NL) and Frederic Makowiecki (FR).


Team GPR AMR will also compete with a DBRS9 in the Pro-Am category with drivers Eddy Renard (BE), Gavin Pickering (GB), and two drivers who are yet to be confirmed. The team made an outstanding start to the Blancpain Series with a 7th place finish overall and 4th in class in Monza. They followed this up with a 7th in class finish in their category in Navarra. GPR AMR has also teamed up with Pierre Grivegnee to enter a further DBRS9 in the Gentleman Trophy class.
Also running a DBRS9 competing in the Pro-Am category is Ecurie Ecosse, whose all-British team comprises of Oliver Bryant, Andrew Smith, Alastair McCraig and Joe Twyman. The team is returning to international motor-racing after an absence of over 20 years.


Belgian race team Speed Lover will be entering their V8 Vantage in the GT4 class with drivers Christophe Bigourie (FR), Sven van Laere (BE) and Peter van Audenhove (BE).

Live coverage of the Total 24 Hours of Spa can be found on Motors TV on 30 July from 2.30pm and again at 8.00pm and 10.30pm. Coverage will resume on 31 July at 8.00am and 1.00pm GMT.

The HEXIS AMR team has won on the other side of the world in Argentina and in Abu Dhabi, as well as at the Sachsenring in front of two German teams. But this weekend, its Paul Ricard jinx struck again! For the third year on the trot, its home race proved to be a frustrating event for the FIA GT1 vice champions. However just as the cars set off for China it has two good reasons to be satisfied. Firstly, Andrea Piccini's and Christian Hohenadel's fifth place snatched against the odds, and secondly, the determination the whole team showed by repairing the damage suffered by the Dusseldorp-Piccione Aston Martin on Saturday, and getting it onto the grid 24 hours later.

Second time unlucky!

In 2009, the year in which the team won the FIA GT3 European title, the no. 3 HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DBRS9 was in the lead when it went off at the entry to the Mistral straight and slammed into the wall. Two years later, Stef Dusseldorp got caught out in the same spot on the same lap. The driver was unhurt but the car was heavily damaged. Things didn't look good, but the team's expert mechanics driven by their heartfelt passion got down to work on the DB9 and pulled off a miracle. On Sunday shortly before 15h00, the V12 roared into life! Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp put in a sterling effort and brought the car home in eleventh place.

Heroic fight backs

In 2010, the year the team filled the runner-up spot in the FIA GT1 World Championship, one of the HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DB9s started eighteenth and finished eleventh in the qualifying race, after which it fought its way up to sixth place in the championship round. A year later, Piccini and Hohenadel were in sixteenth spot on the grid for the qualifying race following a mix-up in tyre management during practice. They fought their way up to sixth place in the 60-minute race, and were then pushed back to eighth on the grid for the championship event after being hit with a controversial penalty. On Saturday, Andrea exceeded the track limits for safety reasons; he came into the corner last and emerged in last place but the stewards were adamant. Despite this, the brio of the drivers and the skills of the mechanics, who once again carried out the best tyre change in the field, helped the team to finish its weekend on a positive note. The points Christian and Andrea scored for fifth have kept them in third place overall in the world title case.

Happy Birthday Philippe!

Just before starting a long night's work the whole team wished their team manager, Philippe Dumas, a happy 32nd birthday. He gives his opinion on the weekend's events in the seventh round of the world championship. "Overall, the weekend got off to a good start until there was the mix-up with the tyres in qualifying, which really handicapped us. It's obvious that had Andrea and Christian started in sixth instead of sixteenth place, a podium finish was within our grasp. As for the penalty in the qualifying race, it's totally out of proportion in terms of sanctions. The message that the stewards have sent to the drivers is that missing your braking or behaving like Stefan Mücke boils down to the same thing. Stef Dusseldorp's crash is his first major mistake after so many superb performances in his maiden season in GT racing, in which he is making his debut on several circuits. Paul Ricard isn't the easiest! Finally, I'd like to congratulate my team for keeping a cool head when they had to fix a car that seemed beyond repair. Clivio was able to start and Stef finished the race and scored a point in the teams' championship. Who knows? Perhaps it will be worth its weight in gold at the end of the season!"

Two hundred guests including Hexis Group employees, partners of the company and the team turned up to cheer on the squad, which is carrying French hopes in the FIA GT1 World Championship. The two Aston Martins will now be packed into the containers in which they will travel to the next two rounds where the team is hoping to put on some stunning performances. While awaiting battle in China on 3-4 September, HEXIS AMR will race in its very first 24-Hour event on the Spa- Francorchamps circuit in Belgium on 30-31 July.

Although the two HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DB9s did not score podiums in the sixth round of the FIA GT1 World Championship on the twisty Navarra circuit in front of 20.000 spectators, they both finished in the points. The French team, which led the championship during the first half of the season, will find itself in the role of hunter in two weeks’ time on the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit. In the meantime, HEXIS AMR will go to Spa-Francorchamps to prepare for the first 24-Hours event in its history.

Top 5 at Navarra

Christian Hohenadel and Andrea Piccini had a very consistent weekend in their no. 4 Aston Martin. They were seventh on the grid for the qualifying race in which the Italo-German pairing finished fifth, and in the main championship event they scored another top-five placing. Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp in the other Aston Martin had a more chaotic time in Spain even though they qualified higher up the grid (5th). On Saturday, Clivio was handed a drive-through penalty after a coming together with a Corvette, which dropped no. 3 back to tenth place on the grid on Sunday. Piccione was caught up in the almost inevitable collision at the start losing time and a piece of bodywork in the incident. The Monegasque and his Dutch team-mate fought their way back up to eighth. HEXIS AMR is now back in second place in the FIA GT1 Teams’ World Championship ratings, 20 points behind the German All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport Lamborghinis, which dominated the Spanish weekend. Piccini and Hohenadel are lying third in the drivers’ classifications, also 20 points behind the leaders, while Dusseldorp-Piccione are fifth. This has done nothing to undermine the morale of the group led by team manager, Philippe Dumas. ‘It’s a new situation. We have to admit that we were very good in some areas and not so good in others. Maybe I’m being a bit hard, but to win a world championship everything has to be perfect. With four rounds to go to the end, when you’re so near the front the aim’s not to finish in P5! To win the drivers’ championship we need victories, and to win the teams’ world championship, our two cars have to be well placed at the finish. We had a little bit of bad luck but we were never in the right place at the start; we received a penalty, and the strategy and pit stops were nothing to write home about. On the other hand, we had good qualifying sessions, our Astons set the two quickest times in the warm-up on a damp track, and the final result is quite good considering the performance of the Aston Martin on this circuit. The fact of being no longer in the lead is maybe a lesser evil. In terms of pressure, it’s not that easy when you’re being chased. We’ll have to fight at Paul Ricard to get back in front, and we won’t have any excuses as we’ll be racing without ballast at home on a circuit we know well!"

The French round of the FIA GT1 World Championship will be a big event whatever happens. HEXIS AMR has promised to do all it can to fire its fans enthusiasm out on the track, and the team will also call upon its usual creativeness to do the same in the paddock.

This weekend, the HEXIS AMR team will arrive at Silverstone leading the FIA GT1 World Championship. The French team's two Aston Martin DB9s have won 50% of the first four races in the championship shared equally between the two driver line-ups. Three weeks ago, Andrea Piccini-Christian Hohenadel came first at the Sachsenring and are leading the drivers ‘standings, while the Abu Dhabi winners, Clivio Piccone-Stef Dusseldorp, are lying fourth. But there's no use turning a blind eye when things are not going well, which is why we‘re also analyzing the team's situation in the Blancpain Endurance Series after no. 4's sixth place in Navarra and the retirement of no. 3.

Tourist Trophy: objective - victory!

Silverstone is a special event on the FIA GT1 World Championship calendar for the team as only 30 kilometers separate the Northampton circuit from the AMR workshops in Banbury. So it's a home race for Aston Martin. As in 2010, this event will carry the prestigious Tourist Trophy name, a race held for the first time in 1905! Last year, HEXIS AMR put on a great performance and the French DB9 scored a double in the qualifying race, as well as second place in the championship round. Without a penalty for having started the engine a fraction too early during a pit stop, HEXIS AMR would have won.

Team manager, Philippe Dumas, makes no bones about his ambitions in the British round of the championship. "It's MY race, by which I mean it's THE race I want to win. We're investing more hope in Clivio and Stef as Andrea and Christian will have to carry thirty kilos ballast after their victory in Germany. We all really want to win at Silverstone and fight for the world championship title. It's obvious that there are many other favourites but we can no longer be considered as outsiders."

Blancpain Endurance Series; Navarra tougher than Monza with Spa next up!

At Monza, the two HEXIS AMR Aston Martin DBRS9s were in a position to fight for the podium - victory even. They did not show the same scintillating form at Navarra. Frédéric Makowiecki, Gilles Vannelet and Henri Moser finished fifth in the GT3 Pro Cup, as at Monza, and sixth overall. They are in fourth place in the championship. Yann Clairay, Pierre-Brice Mena and Julien Rodrigues posted their second retirement, this time because of a defective gearbox.

"In GT3 as in GT1 when I say we're going to have a good weekend, we do, and when I see a difficult one, that too turns out to be the truth," comments Dumas. "In Italy and in Spain we ran into brake problems. At Monza it only led to wear while at Navarra it was a handicap for the driveability of the cars. It's a short track where you have to use first gear a lot of the time. When the car's not braking properly it's difficult to line it up for the corners. We really were in difficulty but that doesn't explain everything. We have problems keeping up with more modern cars, which are more agile and have more advanced driver aid systems. In fact, the quickest GT3 at Navarra was only 1.3s slower than the best GT1 last year on the circuit. Judging by the performance of our lead drivers our setup was competitive. Fred Mako said to me that the car was well balanced, and he drove a perfect lap in qualifying - one-and-a-half-seconds off pole! But it's not all negative given our level and an encouraging sixth place. We were also able to fine-tune a host of small details and improve our refuelling stops, a new area for us endurance debutants!"

Philippe Dumas' and the whole team's thoughts are now turned towards the Spa 24 Hours. HEXIS AMR's first taste of two rounds of the clock racing will take place on 30-31 July. "I'd really love to be able to take part in the test day at Spa on 6th July. We have to work on the aero balance and the brakes if we want to stack all the odds in our favour, so we'll be completely ready to tackle the 24 Hours, our number one objective of the GT3 season!"

Hexis AMR Aston Martin duo Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp will be on maximum attack when the GT1 season resumes at Silverstone next weekend.

The duo currently lie fourth in the Drivers' Standings, and have one Championship Race victory to their credit following their triumph in the opening round at Abu Dhabi.

The last two rounds have been less successful however, with their No.3 DB9 taking just six points from the last four races. Bad luck has been largely to blame, with the duo qualifying on the front row at the Sachsenring before falling victim to the opening lap melee which forced them to retire - and to start Sunday's race from the back of the grid.

Heading into Silverstone, a track well suited to the Aston Martin DB9, Piccione and Dusseldorp insist victory is their main aim as they look to extract the maximum points from the weekend.

"For me, my objective is clear - we have to fight for the win in both races and bring the maximum points back," Piccione declared. "We have no ballast, and I expect the Aston Martin to be really fast on its home ground.

"I love Silverstone and I'm really looking forward to going there - it is a track you can really attack every lap. I'm also looking forward to seeing the hard work they have put into building the new facilities.

"It is home for Aston Martin, and also a bit for me as I spent four years racing in the UK."

Piccione's bullish attitude was mirrored by his young Dutch team-mate Dusseldorp, who said: "Our objective is as always; score as many points as possible. Silverstone should be a good circuit for Aston Martin, so we go for victory in the Championship Race!

"I've never driven there before, only on my PlayStation, so it will be a new experience for me. Luckily Clivio knows the track and we have the data, so I'll have to learn quickly.

"We showed good speed in Qualifying at Sachsenring, but got eliminated in the first turn for the Championship Race. We could have finished on the podium and scored a lot of points, so we have positive feelings about our pace but not about the points we got."

You can follow the progress of Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp and the rest of the GT1 field when the season resumes at Silverstone on 3-5 June. Live streaming of qualifying and both races will be available via GT1TV.

GT1 World

Official partner Team Hexis Racing scored a sensational victory with their Aston Martin DBR9 at the fourth round of the GT1 World Championship Race at Sachsenring, Germany this weekend. It secures the team’s placing at the top of the championship with 107 points, 17 points clear of the next team. Drivers Andrea Piccini and Christian Hohenadel drove the no. 4 Hexis DBR9 from fifth on the grid and stayed clear of a spate of early incidents to secure their first win of the 2011 season.

Christian Hohenadel
nr4 Hexis AMR Aston Martin DB9
"I saw that there was a bit of a mess at the start and I ended up second. The car was very good and I was able to push a lot to get passed the No.8 (Young Driver Aston Martin) and then when I got the lead I pushed again to open up the gap as I was quicker than him. It's my first win in GT1, I didn't expect it so soon. To win in Germany with all my friends here is just fantastic."

Andrea Piccini
nr4 Hexis AMR Aston Martin DB9
"It's never easy when you are first because so many things can happen, and the weather was unpredictable. Christian did a good job and he did most of the work for me. The car was OK, the tyres were fine and the pit stop was fantastic. I just got the car to the end. It's very nice to be leading the (drivers') championship but there is still a long way to go."

And from sprint to endurance racing with the same aim – victory! At Monza for the first long-distance race in HEXIS AMR’s history, one of the team’s two Aston Martins led the race for a long time, and the second DBRS9 was in with a chance of a podium finish with ten minutes to go to the flag. In both cases, the team’s hopes were dashed by mechanical problems, but this performance said it loud and clear - the French squad, the current FIA GT1 World Championship leader - is not in the Blancpain Endurance Series just to make up the numbers. HEXIS AMR is starting a 3-week journey that will see the team travelling from its base in France to Portugal and then Germany for two rounds of the world championship, before tackling the second Blancpain endurance event of the season at Navarra in Spain.

Monza: HEXIS AMR fights at the front in its first endurance race!

In qualifying for the inaugural round of the new Blancpain Endurance Series, the Aston Martin DBRS9 driven by Swiss Henri Moser and Frenchmen Fred Makowiecki and Gilles Vannelet set the third-quickest time. Yann Clairay associated with Pierre-Brice Mena and Julien Rodrigues put the team’s second car in fifth place on the grid. On lap 5, Clairay took the lead of the 32-car field. Seventeen laps later, Stéphane Ortelli nipped past him to take first place. However, the Audi driven by the former Le Mans 24-Hours winner punctured, and the no. 3 Aston Martin went back into the lead before its first refueling stop, which the HEXIS AMR team carried out with its customary brilliance! Once the round of refueling stops had finished, Mena was back in front with a lead of 25 seconds. Unfortunately, just as he was about to hand over to Julien Rodrigues, he saw the warning lights flashing on the dashboard and he was forced to stop with an oil leak in the radiator. This dashed the French team’s hopes of victory after 1h 45m racing.

The no. 4 Aston Martin driven by Moser and then Vannelet held its own in the top ten during the first two-thirds of the event. Several of its nearest rivals were hit with problems, which put the French Aston in the running in the final hour for a much-coveted place on the podium. Makowiecki upped the pace and took third on lap 69 out of 94. A ding-dong battle raged between the Aston, the Porsche of the future winners, a Ferrari, an Audi and a Ford GT. But no. 4 failed to come round at the end of lap 89 after ‘Mako’ went off in the Parabolica due to defective brakes.

Philippe Dumas, the team manager, sums up after this eventful race: “We did a lot of work this winter on the GT3s to make them as good as new and to adapt them to endurance. The regulations don’t leave us much room for manoeuvre, but we concentrated on a host of small details, in particular concerning the driving position. Given the number of points that still have to be improved, I’m fairly satisfied with the way things have gone during the first weekend in this very tough championship. We didn’t score a result but the cars are 100% reliable apart from that glitch with the oil radiator, which keeps recurring on these cars, and for which AMR has to find a solution quickly. Concerning the problem that led to Fred going off, we knew that Monza would be very hard on brakes. The solution we tested in practice was not the right one and both cars started the race with different pads. The ones on the car driven by Yann, Pierre-Brice and Julien was the best. I’m happy with the performance of our six drivers who all listened to our advice, and whose comments we also took into account. We’ve managed to become as professional as we are in GT1, and the two lead drivers, Fred and Yann, were impeccable both in the car and outside. We still have to continue working on the setups and fine-tune wheel changes, but the key point is refueling. No. 4’s third stop went on forever because of a problem with the refueling rig. We can gain time for free in the pits. Overall, it’s better to be positive as we got to within sniffing distance of the podium after good qualifying performances and very promising lap times in the race.”

Crisscrossing Europe!

Here follows the schedule of the next three weekends’ racing, which the HEXIS AMR team will have to cope with almost without time to draw breath in this merry month of May!

3rd round of the FIA GT1 World Championship in Portimao in the Algarve (7/8 May): At last HEXIS AMR is going to find itself on a circuit where it can use the date gathered last season, as the Abu Dhabi layout was modified between 2010 and 2011, and the team had only raced in GT3 at Zolder. The Aston Martin isn’t really at home on bumpy surfaces although HEXIS AMR scored a sixth place in Portugal last year. But the no. 3 DB9 driven by Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp, currently lying second in the world championship, will have to carry 25 kilos of ballast. Third-placed drivers Christian Hohenadel-Andrea Piccini will have 10 kilos in no. 4.

4th round of the FIA GT1 World Championship on the Sachsenring (14/15 May): In the extreme south east of Germany, HEXIS AMR can rely on the experience of a round in the ADAC GT Masters (German GT3 Championship), which the team won in 2008 thanks to Frédéric Mackowiecki and Christian Hohenadel.

2nd round of the GT3 Pro Cup –Blancpain Endurance Series at Navarra (21/22 May): Unlike the Sachsenring HEXIS AMR is entering its Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3s on a circuit that it knows from GT1. In 2010, Fred ‘Mako’ and Yann Clairay finished second in the world championship round on the Spanish track, and this year the latter has become part of the team’s endurance squad. “Navarra will once again be a great test session for the team, which is competing in its first season in endurance,” says Dumas. “Our aim is to see our two cars at the finish after three hours’ racing.”

The Belgian round of the FIA GT1 World Championship was a tough scrap, and HEXIS AMR had to call on all its race craft to score good results. There were several spectacular crashes, and some of the overtaking manoeuvres would not have been out of place on a fairground dodgems’ rink! The No.4 Aston Martin DB9 of Andrea Piccini and Christian Hohenadel took over from its sister car to keep the colours of HEXIS AMR flying. The Italo-German pairing was forced to retire when leading the qualification race. They then fought their way from tenth on the grid to the second step of the podium in the championship event. The Abu Dhabi winners, Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp, did a great job coping with the 30-kg ballast and bagged the points for sixth place in both races. These results have helped HEXIS AMR to double its lead in the FIA GT1 World Championship for Teams, and its four musketeers are in the top three in the drivers’ ratings.

Despite a broken gearbox in prequalifying practice, Christian Hohenadel, the reigning European FIA GT3 Champion, set a superb fourth-quickest time in Q1. His team-mate, former FIA GT Championship runner-up Andrea Piccini, put the team in Q3 for the first time this season, and Christian put on a final spurt to give no. 4 sixth place on the grid for the qualifying race. Piccini avoided the chaos at the start and finished his first stint in sixth place. Once again the French squad carried out a stunning pit stop, the best of the field, sending Christian out in the lead. He held on to first place until just over two laps from the flag. Basseng in his Lamborghini tried to go round the Aston on the outside in the chicane leading onto the pit straight: the two cars made contact under braking and the DB9’s suspension broke. So an uphill task awaited the team on Sunday as Hohenadel had to start from tenth place on the grid. He managed to avoid becoming involved in another crash, and was running in ninth place when the safety car neutralized the race for a good ten minutes - so no overtaking. Once again the HEXIS AMR guys took full advantage of the tyre and driver changes to pull back seven positions, and Piccini rounded off their good work by consolidating his second place as he inched away from Tomas Enge in the Young Driver AMR Aston.

After its Abu Dhabi victory, the no. 3 Aston Martin had to carry 30 kilos of ballast - the fruit of success as it were! Despite this handicap it set good times throughout the weekend thanks to efficient work by the technical team – except in qualifying! Clivio Piccini having his first taste of the circuit did not manage to get the best out of his tyres and made a small mistake at the end of Q1. He paid cash for his error given the tiny gaps between the protagonists in this very exciting world championship. In the qualifying race, no. 3 started from fifteenth place on the grid and fought its way up to sixth. Andrea Piccini and Stef Dusseldorp finished in the same place in the championship event despite a technical problem during their pit stop – for once! They are lying second in the FIA GT1 World Championship for Drivers just in front of their team-mates.

Overall, the team was satisfied with its performance in the second round of the world championship. “Globally speaking, the weekend went off well without too much damage to the two cars,” smiled team manager, Philippe Dumas. “We made a few small mistakes, notably during Clivio and Stef’s pit stop on Sunday. Humanly it was almost perfect but the air nozzle came out which prevented us from gaining places as we’ve got used to doing. It proves that we have to continue working as every detail counts. I’m delighted to see how quick our four drivers – and our cars – are, which boosts our confidence. On no. 3 we managed to adapt the setup to cope with the thirty kilos of ballast. We ran on worn tyres to prepare for the race during the prequalifying session. Getting into Q3 is a step forward in relation to Abu Dhabi. Only the All Inkl Munich Motorsport Lamborghinis were quicker than us at Zolder, but they must have found a special tweak to dominate the other Lamborghinis to such an extent, which have very good drivers. Now, there’s no question of relaxing as we want to make our debut in endurance a real success.”

The Blancpain Endurance Series kicks off this weekend (16-17 April) at Monza. The HEXIS AMR GT3 Aston Martin DBRS9s of Makowiecki-Moser-Vannelet and Clairay-Mena-Rodrigues will be up against tough opposition: 37 cars including 30 GT3s make up a field with names like Ferrari, Porsche, Ford, Lamborghini, Corvette and Audi.

The third round of the FIA GT1 World Championship will take place in Portimao (Portugal) on 7-8 May.

FIA GT1 World Championship – Teams provisional standings :
1. Hexis AMR (FRA) 69 pts
2. All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport (DEU) 50 pts
3. Young Driver AMR (DEU) 47 pts
4. JR Motorsports (GBR) 33 pts
5. Marc VDS Racing Team (BEL) 23 pts
6. Swiss Racing Team (CHE) 22 pts

Aston Martin had a thrilling start to the FIA GT1 World Championship with four Aston Martin DBR9s finishing in the top six. Team Hexis AMR scored a outstanding win with drivers Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp while the other Hexis car finished 4th. The two Young Driver AMR DBR9s crossed the line in 5th and 6th.

Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp scored a maiden victory in the Championship Race at Yas Marina after the Hexis AMR team produced a lightening pitstop that leapfrogged the number 3 Aston Martin DBR9 from 5th into the lead. Dusseldorp had to soak up immense pressure from former FIA GT2 Champion Richard Westbrook for most of the second half of the race but the 21-year-old former single seat driver didn't put a wheel wrong in his first ever GT race.

Clivio Piccione, Hexis AMR Aston Martin DBR9 No. 3
“It’s just an amazing feeling. I have to say a big thank you to the team, they made this win possible today – we had an amazing pit stop, the car has been good all the way through the weekend and it’s just the best start we can have! There was a lot happening at the front, but my aim was to stay as close as possible and out of trouble. Everything went to plan, and we knew we had a good pit stop and then Stef had a great drive at the end and I have to say a big well done to him for his first race in GT!”

Stef Dusseldorp, Hexis AMR Aston Martin DBR9 No. 3
“I feel incredible! I have no words to say, except that the team made this possible. We did a great pit stop in the first race and now the team did the same job and out me in first. All I had to do was finish the race, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds because of the Nissan so it feels incredible. I have good memories from Zolder (the next round), so hopefully we can have a repeat performance there!”
Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorf leave the Middle East with a two point advantage in the championship, while Hexis AMR leads JR Motorsports by 11 points in the Team title race.

Round 2 of the FIA GT1 World Championship will take place in Belgium at Zolder on Sunday 10 April.