The Advantage

Plenty of Aston Martins to watch compete at the Le Mans Classic this weekend

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

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

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

What is there not to like about that!?

Wednesday, July 01, 2026 | Read more...

Christmas offerings if you have a suitable budget!!

The end to any race season always sees an increase in the number of cars being offered for sale as teams from around the world realign themselves ahead of any forthcoming commitment in the season ahead and this week is no different to that.

What has been listed for sale this week, however, is perhaps one of the biggest packages of race cars that Aston Martin Racing has ever offered in its 2021 Vantage Legacy Collection.

Listed up Racecarsdirect.com today sees the existing American based owner offer for sale by auction this trio of cars, albeit in a different format than that first offered by the factory. Originally revealed in 2020 and then made up as a trio of the Vantage GT4, V12 Vantage GT3 and V8 Vantage GTE saw the owner offset the GT4 car a few years ago in favour of the now outgoing 16A turbo charged version, new at the time we first become aware of the collections location.

Supported by the MC2 Autosport team, we understand that all cars saw track day action with its owner, but none were (then) raced.

Further details of this $1.5 million can be found HERE

Alongside this, the website also has this seasons AMR Vantage LMGT3 used by the TF Sport team within the European Le Mans Series with Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Jonny Adam.

Listed as being fully rebuilt since the end of its European season, this car would be race ready for anyone competing at the highest of GT3 levels.

Alongside that, the site also has the listings for one example of the Lola Aston Martin B09/60 prototype as well as many more Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars from the likes of the Street Art Racing, GPA Racing and Ultimate Speed teams.

Then, upon another site we actually have a brand-new AMR Vantage GT4 Evo listed for sale within the USA.

With Christmas now just two weeks away, there’s plenty out there to choose from.

Photo credits – Respective websites

Tuesday, December 10, 2024 | Read more...

Silverstone Festival delivers rewards for multiple AMR classes in Masters Series

Aston Martin Racing from across the ages and classes was also well represented at the weekend a literally hundreds of vintage and classic race cars descended upon Silverstone for what is now known as the Silverstone Festival.

Spread over the three days of last weekend, those who either attended the event or watched its live stream would have been blessed with the sights and indeed sounds of cars like the Lola Aston Martin DBR1-2, Vantage GT2, Vantage GT3 and Vantage GT4’s that competed within either the master’s endurance Legends or Master’s GT Trophy rounds.

Historic racer, Christophe D’Asembourg was throwing his Lola Aston martin about again, finishing P5 overall and second in class during race 1 of the Endurance Legends before an improved P3 overall and P1 in class for race 2.

Also within that race was the #12 AMR Vantage GT3 of Guenther Alth as well as the new #19 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 (not quite sure how that qualified as being a ‘legend’ considering the car is next to brand new this year?) for which drivers Claude Bovet and David McDonald won their G2/GT3 class during race 1 on Saturday.

In a weekend otherwise short of AMR success within the more up to date realms of current motorsport, the Paul Whight and Alistair MacKinnon driven AMR Vantage GT2 secured an INV class win in P5 overall at the end of their two-hour race with the #33 Vantage GT4 of Dale Albutt stepping in for his father and powering his way to a class win as well.

Photo credits (where known) - Masters Series

Tuesday, August 29, 2023 | Read more...

Funny old week!!

It’s been a very odd sort of week or so for Aston Martin Racing and their Partner/Customer teams.

During that time we have learned of at least three new AMR based race programmes to look forward to in 2022, utilising either the Vantage GT3 or GT4 platforms – the only one that we can (will) mention is the news from earlier today and the step up to the AMR Vantage GT4 for the French based GPA Racing team ahead of next season’s FFSA GT4 and GT4 European Series with a two-car effort in both series.

One of their cars conducted a test before this weekend’s final round of the FFSA GT4 Series at Paul Ricard with Valentin Hasse-Clot behind the wheel.

Before that, we have seen the AMR racing scene in North America growing stronger almost by the race thanks to the hard work from those at CSJ Motorsport and now also in the Far East, with the work from Aston Martin Racing Asia.

With many series around the world now coming to an end for the year, it is not surprising to see teams like GPA Racing jockeying for position in the early days of their 2022 season build up and ‘hats off’ to those at the factory for facilitating such deals that grow AMR’s customer base to levels never experienced before.

As with everything in life, for every plus there is always an equal and opposite negative and that came with the closing of a significant career chapter for Aston Martin Racing’s President and Director of Special Projects at Aston Martin Lagonda, David King as he left his office for the final time this week to seeking challenges new elsewhere.

Twenty-six years we believe that he has put into the brand that we love, with varying degrees of success (and not so) along the way for which we thank him and wish him well for the future. Sadly for the business as a whole, he appears to be just another significant player within the AML/AMR framework to leave which does make us wonder about the exact desire of the new management structure to compete at the highest level of motorsport outside that of F1?

If nothing else, the success of the AMR crew around the Nordschleife last weekend to claim AMR's first overall race win was the perfect send off for such a person, who will be missed from the paddock.

For now, that commitment is solely with their Partner and Customer teams around the world and with such variation and diversity amongst them, that’s not such a bad thing after all is it??

Photo credits – AMR / GPA Racing / CSJ Motorsport

Friday, October 01, 2021 | Read more...

Time passing galleries Part 8 AMR Festival 2015

Forty two race cars were initially entered into the second edition of the Aston Martin Racing Festival for the 2015 24 Hours at Le Mans World Endurance Championship support race.

Made up mainly of a plethora of both Vantage GT4's, Vantage GT3's with various Invitational variants in between, the balance of the grid was made of Vantage GTE's (GT2) as well as cameo appearances from RoFGo's Lola DBR1-2 and Aston Martins then new GT12 car.

Despite the glorious weather over the race week, Saturday's race sadly ended behind the Safety Car as the GT4 entry from 22GT Racing ended up hard into the armco barrier coming out of Tetre Rouge on only his third lap. That incident lead to a prolonged Safety Car period before the race was ultimately red flagged due to barrier repairs needs before the start of the WEC 24hr race later that afternoon.

Paul White and Tom Onslow Cole in then his Bilstein liveried GT3 were adjudged to have won overall (with a degree of controversy) what little racing there had been with further class honours for Andrew Howards Beechdean AMR GTE and Derek DeBoer in his TRG-AMR winning GT4.

The biggest 'winner' was of course the return of the Gulf liveried Lola P1 screaming its way around the iconic circuit again. Further details of the race can be found HERE

Whilst the CoronaVirus lockdown and restricted movement continues in many countries around the world, we just hope that these galleries with photos in no particular order help (just a tiny bit) in relieving any boredom and wets the appetite for a return to motor racing some time soon.

#Staysafe #stayhome #NHSHeroes