Although last night’s announcement is for two cars, only one will be an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 for a realignment of their 2022 WEC campaign with Charlie Fagg joining the usual Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii within the #777 car whilst their previous GT8R runners will now be within a Porsche having sampled the Vantage GT3 within a couple of rounds of last season’s GT world Challenge Asia Japan Cup.

This season’s seven round season starts at the end of March and runs through to mid-November.

Photo credits – Team / social media

Amongst those thirty-two cars we will only see the #8 Earl Bamber Motorsport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Setiawan Santosa take part as the D’Station Racing team have elected not to travel – mainly because the World Endurance Championship is in attendance at their home circuit of Fuji this weekend as well.

Santosa runs as a solo driver within the Am Class and sits a very credible fourth within his drivers championship table going into this final event and with fifty points still available, he could move up as high as second come the end of the season on Sunday.

The EBM team has been in the news today for other reasons as the New Zealand based team has been awarded a lucrative GT3 entry within this year’s Asian Le Mans Series over the New Year.

Photo credits – Team / series

Having opened the Japan Cup sub class of the series within one of the team’s Vantage GT3’s, the ‘more senior’ drivers this time elected to run the third round of the Japan Cup within a Vantage GT4 having struggled last time out at Fuji Speedway, ending with a DNF.

Whilst the #777 car did do better than last time out with a P5 GT3 Pro-Am class finish at the end of race one on Saturday and a P9 finish at the end of Sunday’s closing GTWCAsia event, it was the separately running Japan Cup entry of the #47 car who scooped a pair of GT4 Am Class wins who grabbed the headlines for the AMR Partner team.

As far as Championship standings are concerned, the #777 GT3 Pro-Am crew now sit P13 in class with the #8 EMB car in P6 whilst in the Japan Cup, the #47 crew share both a fifth within GT3 Am and eleventh within GT4 Am.

Next round is at Okayama, Japan at the end of August.

Despite being first time out within one of the teams new 2024 Vantage GT3’s, the Am class pairing did secure a P3 in class finish at the end of race 1 although that was countered with a DNF in race 2.

Whilst the #777 crew run again within the main body of the GT World Challenge Asia Series, the sister #47 Vantage GT3 for Tatsuya Hoshino and Kenji Hama will run within the sub-Japan Cup class alongside sixteen other GT3 and GT4 entries. There will be thirty-three cars running within the main GTWCAsia grid making for a very busy racetrack.

Completing the AMR trilogy at the event will be the return of the #8 Earl Bamber Motorsport prepared Vantage GT3 for solo racer Setiawan Santosa.

Photo credits – Teams / series

No strangers to running multi-car – multi-class entries of course saw the Henrik Lungaard led team become the third such Partner team to commit to the SRO governed series alongside that of the Walkenhorst Motorsport and Comtoyou Racing teams, also with a yet to be determined driver line up.

Again entering the new 2024 Evo version of the Vantage GT3 platform like the others, sources close to AMR have suggested that the AMR entry confirmed so far could still increase in numbers, even into double figures if everything aligns for those teams involved such is the interest with the latest Aston Martin offering.

With the team also confirming the retention of their long-term sponsor Mascot Workwear, we are just hopeful that the red and black livery of old will be retained by both cars in both series which start off at Paul Ricard in early April for the Endurance Series and at Brands Hatch for the Sprint Series in early May.

Having seen the team and some of the crew race with podium winning success at the last round of the GT World Challenge Asia Japan Cup Series from Okayama a couple of weeks ago, the ST1 class was forced to miss the last round of the series due to paddock size but the #47 Tatsuya Hoshino, Max Orido, Kenji Hama and Jake Parsons driven car will be back this time around with one simple game plan.

Having been the bridesmaid in class to the all-conquering #2 KS Frontier KTM so far this season, the AMR crew sit just 9.5 points behind the KTM crew within this two-horse class with just three rounds including this one to go!

Photo credits – Series / Team

Running within the main series, the Japan Cup didn’t quite go down to the wire as the outside chance still retained by the #47 D’Station Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii had that taken from them with reported electrical issues halfway through race one yesterday that allowed the then Championship leading #18 Porsche secure their crown.

Honourable to the end, that didn’t stop the #47 pushing until the end during today’s hour-long race where the #47 car finished just behind the #18 crew to claim a swan-song P3 in class.

Qualifying tenth on the grid and eighth within the overall GT3 Pro-Am class, Hoshino would ultimately take the start the start of his opening half hour stint from the rear of the grid (not known why) but that was soon cut short anyway as multiple incidences upon the opening lap brought out the red flag for barrier damage and circuit clean up.

After a lengthy delay, the race eventually got back underway behind the Safety Car but with the #47 having gained nearly half the grid by the time the race originally went under caution before the red flag and with just over 45 minutes of the race then remaining by the time as it went back to green.

A further incident for a Porsche lead to another caution period and that saw Hoshino leap up to P11 before apparently faltering on track at the restart and plummeting down to P22 as a whole host of cars passed him for position just ahead of the pits stop window.

Absolute disaster!!

Even with Fujii then jumping aboard, the gap to the GT3 Japan Cup Championship leader in the #18 Porsche ahead was too great and with that car eventually finishing P8 overall and more importantly P3 within the Japan Cup stakes, these issues during race 1 would prove too much for the D’Station Racing GT3 team with the #18 crew going onto to secure the Japan Cup Championship win with one race remaining.

The series also saw their first ever solo GT4 class race at Okayama with seven such cars taking the start to today’s race with the #48 D’Station Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Tatsuya Hoshino and Kenji Hama aboard within their Am classed car.

Debuting within the series only today, this was more of inclusiveness and experience for the crew as Hoshino placed the car upon the front row to today’s race in second.

Going someway to make up for the disappointment within their GT3 garage, but unfortunately at the cost of the greater D’Station Racing Super Taikyu Series driver Max Orido, Hama eventually brought the #48 car home to claim P5 overall and P2 in Am.

Photo credits – Team / Series

Whilst the #47 Vantage GT3 has contested all rounds except for the season opener at the Chang International in Thailand, their Vantage GT8R crew is more used to racing within the country’s domestic and multi-classed Super Taikyu Series with an up to four driver line up.

With an expanded grid of seven GT4 based cars, this fifth round of the season sees the overall entry list expand to thirty-eight cars for the two one-hour races of the weekend.

As far as the overall GTWCAsia Championship is concerned, the #47 crew have only scored in three races so far which places them down in P18 overall but within their own Japan Cup GT3 Drivers Championship stakes, they presently sit second within the table and just seventeen points behind the leaders as that series concludes this weekend.

There is still much to race for.

Photo credits – Team / Series

Flying back into Japan for this latest round of the SRO series from Monza, drivers Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii were looking a for good performances from the off and Hoshino’s Qualifying position of P10 for race 1 looked promising.

Unfortunately, bad luck again quickly came their way as Hoshino was first tapped into a spin by one Porsche before being collected by another even before the opening lap was a quarter finished. Whilst Hoshino was able to quickly move his car out of immediate harm’s way from further contact, he was unable to get the car going again and would retire the car on the spot.

Race 2 on Sunday would go better as Fujii opened the proceedings for the D’Station team, vigorously at times defending their track position of P10 from Saturdays race winner for much of his stint.

Handing back over to Hoshino, a wide track through the chicane gave a brief cause for concern before he adopted a more conventional route around the circuit and whilst others were ‘losing their heads’ and gaining themselves race and post-race penalties, the #47 car would eventually be classified sixth overall – P5 in GT3 Pro-Am.

That result also gave the team a GT3 Japan Cup class win and lifts them up to second within that championship table as the series quickly moves onto Motegi next weekend.

Photo credits – Team / Series

With the series opening at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand back in mid-May, the Japan Cup opens up most of the Japanese circuits to the series plus doubles the entry list per round in both GT3 and GT4 format to the great success it enjoyed last season where the D’Station Racing went on to enjoy podium success.

That success has so far illuded them so far this season after having their win at Fuji denied due to a multi-car Safety Car procedure post-race penalty being applied to the first dozen cars over the finishing line leaving them with just their P7 finish in race 2 to shout about.

Events in Europe within the WEC also didn’t go well for the team after their #777 AMR Vantage GTE with Hoshino behind the wheel was needlessly shoved off track and hard into the outer concrete wall by a Hypercar driver who hap simple not ‘seen’ the car he was overtaking. That incident put the #777 out of the 6Hours of Monza within the opening twenty minutes but luckily, Hoshino was reported to be suffering from not significant ill effect from it.

This weekend’s event from Suzuka will again follow the series one long race format over both Saturday and Sunday.

We wish them well.

Photo credits – Team / Series

Eventually finished fifth overall, the pairing enjoyed four visits to the podium over the course of the ten round overall series and the eight rounds that made up the Japan Cup, they will be coming back in 2023 with an eye on finishing at least higher than their third in class finish within the GT3 Pro-Am class.

This news off the back of confirmation that the team will have just as hectic a schedule next year as they did this with entries already announced within the Asian Le Mans Series and Super Taikyu Series together with an expected return to the World Endurance Championship.

2023 will see the green liveried Aston Martin compete again within the four double header rounds of the Japan Cup with races at Fuji, Suzuka, Motegi and Okayama between June and August.

Photo credits - Team

With the wet weather fortunately passing the circuit by in time for the opening hour-long race yesterday, Hoshino’s third place starting position would unfortunately be unravelled with a poor get away at the rolling start, only to be later compounded with a spin after which Fujii would bring the car home in eighth.

For this morning final race of the season, Fujii had already qualified the car to the head of the pack to claim his second pole position of the season along with Sugo. Whilst the pressures of championship battles got the better of some as early as the opening lap, there was no stopping the #47 crew as they ended their GT World Challenge Asia AMR audition with their third podium and second race win of the season to finish the year fifth in the GT3 Teams Championship, third in the overall GT3 Drivers Championship and runners up in both the Japan Cup’s GT3 Drivers and Teams Championships.

That leaves the team just two more rounds of their Super Taikyu Series and final round of the World Endurance Championship to finish off their year.

Photo credits – Team / GTWC Asia