Thanks to the tireless work of our Facebook friends at Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 Chassis Number Tracking, we have today rekindled friendships with old cars that seemed to have disappeared from our midst over the early months of 2018.

Conspicuous by its absence from last months Aston Martin Racing Festival At Le Mans was the iconically Bilstein liveried V12 Vantage GT3, affectionately known as 'Billie' and used by the AMR factory team at events such as the ADAC Zurich N24 with drivers such as Darren Turner, Stefan Mucke and Pedro Lamy at the wheel.


Originally owned by Paul White, the car was purchased a couple of years ago and indeed raced by Austrian fanatic Alexander Lienau as late as the Masters Endurance Legends event at Imola only last month before being sold very recently to its new owner Mike Gensemeyer who is due to run the car at this weekend's Le Mans Classic.


The other car coming back into the limelight is the next to new, former Solaris Motorsport V12 Vantage GT3 that was run by the team in the International GT Open Series with drivers Francesco Sini and Mauro Calamia.

Having destroyed their original chassis in a winter season test at Paul Ricard, the Italian team laboured for many weeks to build themselves a new car from scratch, missing various rounds of the season before calling it a day after the Silverstone round last year.


The car is now being used in the Italian Campionato Italiano Velocita Montagna hill climb series.

Photo credits - ACI Sport / Social media

This weekend, like many other weekends of this year, is another busy racing weekend around the world for many from within the #TeamAMR family and we take a brief look at what's on offer.

Starting in France, this weekend is the biennial Le Mans Classic weekend from the Circuit de La Sarthe - the home of the legendary 24 hour endurance event. With many a historic Aston Martin  race car competing within the plethora of events over the course of the weekend our attention is instantly drawn to the latter day race cars entered into the two half-hour Global Endurance Legends demonstration runs that will take place over the weekend.


These include two examples of the DBR9 GT1 race car of when the factory went back to its 'race what you sell mentality' after a mixed foray into prototype car racing as well of examples of the subsequent GT2 and GT3 Vantages who will all take to the circuit with 75 other cars of these racing  generations.


Over in Germany, we have another round of the VLN Series at the Nordschleife with Avia Racing looking to recreate their podium success of VLN3 just two weeks ago with their SP10 class Vantage GT4.

Having now recovered fro, their exploits in the Aston Martin Racing Festival at Le Mans three weeks ago, we see the return of the AMR Performance centre's Aston Martin GT8 with Heinz Jurgen Kroner again leading the marques customer ambitions around the Green Hell on Saturday.


On the opposite side of the world, the China GT Championship reconvenes for its third round of the season from the Audi Goldensport Motor Park in Beijing. Britains Jack Mitchell and his local co-driver Ryan Liu endured two difficult races last time out with power steering issues (namely the lack of it) in their China Equity AMR Vantage GT4 but despite that the duo still hold second place in the overall GT4 Championship table just five points behind the class leading McLaren.


With information not always flowing out of China in a timely manner it is not yet known just how many China Equity AMR cars have been entered into this event considering the tracks proximity to its parent company base location.

Photo credits - Sam Moores / China GT / Avia Racing