Despite some racing hardships for some of the other Aston Martin Racing powered entries within various series around the world last weekend, there was something to cheer about for the two Vantage GT4 crews racing in last weekend’s Campeonato de Portugal de Velocidade visit to Vila Real.

As bespoke event around the improvised street circuit layout saw twenty-five entries being ran for the two fifty-minute races including the #28 Racar Motorsport AMR entry of Vasco Oliviera/Manuel Giao within GT4 bronze and the #777 RV7 Am class entry for Ruben Vaquinhas.

 

Race one on Saturday proved the perfect end to the days proceedings as the #28 car finished P4 overall and P1 in class with the #777 car P13 overall and P1 in class as well. That was nearly replicated in Sundays finale as the #777 car this time finished P9 overall/ P1 in class but for the #28 car – a mistake over a high kerb launching the bright orange Aston Martin around nose on to into the armco barrier.

 

Eyes now look towards the next round of the mainstay Iberian Supercars Series from Valencia towards the end of September.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

 

 

Our last round of weekend previews comes in the form of GT4 powered racing as both the Iberian Racing Festival and Britcar Series deliver us some more Aston Martin Racing powered entries to go alongside those already mentioned.

Running this time as a solo, bespoke event for the Campeonato De Portugal de Velocidade Series at the street circuit of Vila Real this time sees just two AMR Vantage GT4 powered crews as listed within the twenty-five strong entry. More used to seeing these names and teams running within the Iberian Supercars Series, this weekend will see just #28 Racar Motorsport AMR of Vasco Oliveira with Manuel Giao compete alongside stablemate Rubens Vaquinhas within his #777 RV7 Team Aston Martin.

 

Last year saw double that AMR powered entry within a smaller overall entry and also proved productive for Vaquinhas who secured two Am class race wins over the weekend to help him on his way to an overall Am Class championship win.

Back within the UK, the Britcar Endurance Series will be running their fourth round of their six-round season with another ninety-minute race at Snetterton on Saturday.

 

Father and son pairing Bill and Martin Addison compete again together within their 17A variant of the Vantage GT4 platform. The pair did also compete together last time out at Spa Francorchamps where one of them did survive a multi-rotation spin at the bottom of Eau Rouge during the heavy rain of Free Practice.

Photo credits – Teams / Series

 

As we first thought, a suggestive entry list featuring up to six Aston Martin Racing powered entries into last weekend’s final round of the Iberian Supercars Series from Estoril saw in the end just three such cars take part.

Featuring two final fifty minute races within the series season concluding Estoril Endurance Festival saw both the #77 Racar Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 of Mathieu Martins and the #777 Gianfranco AMR Vantage GT4 of Rubens Vaquinhas and Pedro Bastos Rezende chase the Iberian and Espana Series double within their respective GT4 Pro and GT4 Am classes.

The successfully ran Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 from the Araujo Competicao team will be taken over by a different driver crew this season as Vasco Oliveira and Guilherme Lemos step up to the plate for this year’s Iberian Supercars and Campeonato de Portugal de Velocidade Series.

Last year piloted by the more gentlemanly pairing of Alvaro Ramos and Fernando Soares to claim the GTX Championship win, the brightly coloured Vantage GT4 will this year be taken on by the younger pairing as they step up to GT4 for the first time.

The sixth and final round of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series takes place this weekend in the midst of several weeks of intense motor racing participation for Japanese team D'Station Racing AMR.

Having just wrapped up a rather disappointing inaugural season with their new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 in the Japanese Super GT Series only last weekend, the team still have a mathematical chance of snatching the overall and ST-X Class win (should other results go their way) in the final round of Super Taikyu from Okayama on Sunday.


Again running the driver line up of team boss Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Tsubasa Kondo in the teams distinctly green liveried #777 car, they need to finish no worse than second overall and with the two Nissan GT-R teams ahead of them in the Championship not scoring in order for them to make up their 29.5 point deficit to the leaders and claim the top honours.

A no-points score at the third round in Fuji with technical issues is the reason for their lower Championship position after AMR factory driver Darren Turner helped them off to a podium winning start to the new season with their new car.


That may seem like a tall ask but with the 5 strong ST-X class only a small fraction of the sixty car  - eight class strong grid, then anything could happen around the tight and twisty 3.7km Okayama International Circuit.

Just a few weeks ago, this weekend would have been there final race of the 2019 season but for their late entry into the forthcoming 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series where the team will field one of their AMR Vantage GT3 cars for Hoshino, Fujii and AMR factory driver Ross Gunn. That season kicks off in Shanghai (where Gunn is at the moment in the World Endurance Championship) in just two weeks time.



Photo credits - D'Station Racing

Whilst the new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 was quietly winning its first national Championship and with other AMR platforms jockeying for position in others at the penultimate round of the British GT Championship at Brands Hatch at the weekend, two well known names within the AMR racing fraternity where marking their debut appearances with other customer teams around the world.

Despite his length of service with both Prodrive and Aston Martin Racing, WEC driver and brand ambassador Darren Turner was ticking off another series off his 'to do list' by helping Japanese based D'Station Racing AMR in the endurance round of the Super GT Series from Fuji Motor Speedway.


Having already raced with the team in one of their new AMR Vantage GT3's in the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series with much success this season, this weekends appearance in the Fuji 500 marked Turners first appearance in the top flight Japanese GT Series as he joined regular series drivers Tomonobu Fuji and JP de Oliveira in their #7 car at the flagship event of their calendar.

For the crew, early timed sessions of the meeting proved that the team had good pace in the ultra competitive - tyre brand war arena of the GT300 class by finishing P3 in Free Practice before later Qualifying in P10 for the Sunday morning five hour race.


Disadvantaged by the warmer temperatures as far as their Yokohama tyres performed on race day, the #7 car would run as high as P2 in class before tyre degradation, Safety Cars and race contact hampered optimum running and performance on track for the trio. The car would eventually finish P11 in class.

It's onwards to (hopefully) the land of the rising sun for Aston Martin Racing factory driver Darren Turner this weekend as he returns to the D'Station Racing AMR team for the latest round of Japanese Super GT Series at Fuji Speedway.

Having already supported the team earlier this year in opening rounds of the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series with podium winning success, Fuji will be the first time that Turner has raced with team regulars Tomonobu Fujii and JP de Oliveira in the Super GT Series side of the teams operations although he has previously tested with them.


Since swapping to the new 2019 specification AMR Vantage GT3, D'Station Racing AMR have endured a very testing re-introduction into the second tier of the Japanese national GT series with both accident damage and technical issues blighting their race performances so far.

Indeed, the series last race in Buriram, Thailand ticked all the right boxes in performance terms until after the compulsory pit stop when a rear puncture at the start of the lap robbed the team of what would have been a very much deserved podium finish with only minutes remaining.


The fifth round of the Series at Fuji is the 500mile endurance round (hence the third driver) and is something that Turner has posted that he is very much looking forward too having missed the World Endurance Championship race at the circuit last season when drivers Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim posted the new Vantage GTE's first WEC class pole position.

With the GT300 cars racing with the faster GT500 cars from a staggered rolling start, Fuji will see 15 GT500 cars and 29 GT300 cars take the start on Sunday.


As a full AMR Partner team, D'Station get the full help from the AMR factory in UK and have all been working tirelessly to help resolve some of the previous performance issues. With the team also having recently acquired another brand new Vantage GT3 (which won them another podium last time out in the Super Taikyu Series) we wonder if they will be running that new car in preference to their other Super GT chassis that has been involved in a couple of sizeable accidents already?

Photo credits - D'Station Racing 

After a significant amount of investment by the team and its stakeholders looking into every aspect of their racing performances so far, D'Station Racing AMR were hopeful of a good points finish as the Japanese Super GT Series made its way over to Thailand for the Chang Super GT Race from Buriram at the weekend.

For the team of the #7 Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3, everything was looking promising as drivers JP de Oliveira and Tmonobu Fuji brought the car back second fastest in Free Practice before Qualifying on the second row (P3) of the GT300 grid ahead of Sundays sixty six lap race.


With de Oliveira taking the start for the team, it was clear that the car had the pace to at least maintain its track position in class in the opening laps of the race with the passing GT500 cars giving rise for opportunist moves. Not being able to make any head way against the class leading Realize GT-R car, Oliveira was at least able to take the Hoppy Racing car for P2 by lap twenty and that extended to an overall class lead by the time the leading #56 car pitted ahead of the halfway point.

A Safety Car for the effects of three tangling GT500 cars temporally delayed the stop for the #7 car before Fujii re-emerged P5 in class by the time all the GT300 cars had made their stop after the race went back to green on lap forty three.


Pushing between P4 and P5, Fujii remained in racing contact with three of the cars ahead giving the potential of an exciting last few laps but that was all dashed on lap 60 when debris on track left the #7 car with a rear right puncture right at the worst position of the lap - in the first sector leaving the Japanese driver a slow and painful return to the pits for repairs. By the time he had reached pit lane the car had already dropped to P15 and that dropped again to P19 by the time it re-joined the track for the last couple of laps.



Utterly devastating for the team to have come so far in performance improvement only for a stray piece of track debris to let it all come crashing back down to zero again. They do however take confidence from their performances on track and will be ready again as the Series returns to the Japanese mainland for round five at Fuji - the endurance round in early August.


Photo credits - D'Station Racing AMR

The fourth round of the Japanese Super GT Series takes place this weekend with D'Station Racing AMR hoping that the change in country changes their fortunes in the series as attention turns to the Chang Super GT race from the Buriram International Circuit in Thailand.

Having turned their allegiances to Aston Martin Racing for this season, D'Station Racing AMR have suffered a dreadful introduction to the GT300 category aboard their AMR Vantage GT3 with both accident damage and most recently technical issues thwarting all endeavours of a point finish at the first three rounds of the series so far in Japan.


Round four features a smaller twenty four car entry including the #7 car of Tomonobu Fuji and JP de Oliveira both of whom were racing at last weekends ADAC Total 24H race in separate Nissan GT-R GT3. Presently, the team features at the foot of the GT300 Series table.


If there is a team out there who need a little bit of luck and support to kick off their 2019 season - its these guys. Fingers crossed.

Photo credits - D'Station Racing AMR

Whilst Optimum Motorsport made some pretty significant steps forwards with their new Pro class podium finish at the second round of their International GT Open Series endeavours at the weekend, for two other Aston Martin Racing Partner teams, this weekends results continued their distinctly split path of results that they have enjoyed so far this season.

Starting in Europe - Friday and Saturday saw the third round of Creventic's 24H Series and the 12Hours of Brno take place from the small but technically challenging circuit in the Czech Republic. Back supporting the series again but first time visitors to Brno with their new 2019 AMR Vantage GT4 was the German based PROsport Performance team (again racing under their PROpeak Performance banner) and their trio of drivers - Rodrique Gillion, Nico Verdonck and Akhil Rabindra.


Having already enjoyed a brace of podium finishes in the Series including a GT4 class win last time out at Spa, the team were certainly hoping of maintaining that momentum gained within their this and their other GT4 programmes this season to help offset the frustration that must be building from their (to date) unsuccessful ventures into the ADAC GT Masters Series with their other AMR Vantage GT3's.

This time competing within a slightly larger GT4 field of six cars, the #1 car Qualified P3 for the start of the race which would begin soon afterwards on Friday afternoon before concluding later of Saturday. By the end of the opening three hour part of the race the #1 car was laying in P4 in class but already a couple of laps down to the lead car.

The next nine hours of racing would see the car compete with both of the M4 BMW's for the second two steps of the podium what with the #224 KTM X-bow being dominant from the start of the meeting with their more Brno experienced driver base. At the end of the nine hour stint of Saturday the #1 car would again be podium bound with a P3 finish at their first visit to the track.


Congratulations to them.


Then over in Japan there was the third round of their national Super GT weekend where another of this years Aston Martin Racing convertees, D'Station Racing AMR were competing in the GT300 class with a new AMR V8 Vantage GT3.

Also competing with a similar GT3 chassis in the Pirelli Super Taikyu Series, the team have already enjoyed several podium finishes (including race wins) in that series but had been distinctly unlucky so far in the coveted GT300 series after significant damage was sustained in the wet that was the opening round at Okayama before technical issues blighted round two at Fuji.


Looking to make amends for the poor start to the season, drivers JP Oliveira and Tomonobu Fujii had been working hard in between events to move their svelte liveried #7 car forward. Also enjoying a dry race weekend for the first time this season the #7 car finished P18 during Free Practice (just 1.235 seconds off the lead pace) before having their Qualifying affected by a red flag to finish P19 for the start of Sundays race.

Unfortunately for the team, everything again 'went south' just after the pit stops when Oliveira had to retire the car due to an electrical issue that was effecting its performance. Obviously bitterly disappointed, the team have vowed to continue fighting on looking for that change in circumstance that will allow them to race their competitors on equal levels.


Next round of the Super GT - GT300 will be in Thailand at the end of June.

Photo credits - 24H Series / PROpeak Performance / D'Station Racing AMR

As the World Endurance Championship prepares for its super-season finale at Le Mans in under a months time, another hectic weekend of motor racing beckons for many Aston Martin Racing's customer and Partner teams around the world.

Starting on the far side of the world to where we are presently sitting sees D'Station Racing AMR return for the third round of the Japanese Super GT GT300 series looking to secure their first points of the season after having to retire with damage after the debut rounds at both Okayama and Fuji with their #7 AMR Vantage GT3.


Back into Europe and the International GT Open Series moves to the Hockenheim race track for the first time for their second round of the season after their opener at Paul Ricard.

Optimum Motorsport will be fielding a new driver combination aboard their AMR Vantage GT3 with young gun Ollie Wilkinson now being joined by AMR factory driver and driver coach (to Wilkinson) Darren Turner.

Last time out in France, Wilkinson and Bradley Ellis secured a Pro-Am podium with a P2 finish, only narrowly missing out on the top step after a great debut race in the Aston in lieu of their Audi R8 they raced last year.


Over at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, the German based DMV GTC Series have their third round of the season with another triple header of a 60 minute race and two shorter races with their older, no longer main stream homologated group of GT3 race cars.

Timo Scheibner returns with his #13 AMR V12 Vantage GT3 after starting so well with a trio of P4 finishes in round 1 before falling away with technical issues later in round 2.


German based PROsport Performance take their AMR Vantage GT4 race cars over to the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic for the latest round of the 24H Series event after a great P2 finish debut in Mugello before going one better last time out at Spa with a dominant class win.

Their trio of drivers will be looking to maintain the momentum already gained in this latest 12 hour race of the Series.

We wish them all well.


Photo credits - D'Station Racing / Optimum / 

This weekend saw the opening round of the Japanese national Super GT Series where one of Aston Martin Racings latest team recruits, D'Station Racing AMR were competing in the GT300 events with their new AMR Vantage GT3.

Early tyre testing in the season had placed the new Vantage GT3 in good stead amongst their more established teams and cars within the Series and there were realistic high hopes going into the opening race weekend at Okayama in western Japan.


Reportedly struggling with balance, drivers JP Oliviera and Tomanobu Fujii finished P22 in Saturdays practice - some 1.8 seconds off the pace setting Toyota Mark X MC but that improved slightly to P19 during Qualifying.

Like the rain falling upon much of the motor racing in Southern Europe this weekend, race day today saw for very wet track conditions. What happened to their #7 car can unfortunately be summed up in the following video clip. Thankfully nobody was injured in the incident but the car did suffer significant damage which will need repairing in time for the endurance round at Fuji in early May - the race in which the able driving services of Darren Turner will be employed.


Photo credits - D'Station Racing / video - Super GT

Not since the early days of Aston Martin Racing's V12 Vantage GT3 some five years ago has the British marque been represented at the Japanese Super GT Championship with the likes of the then Aspeed and Arnage Racing who both raced with chassis #003.

Yesterday mornings announcement from D'Station Racing confirms a rekindled participation for the Banbury based team within the top flight Japanese GT series with one of their brand new turbo charged V8 Vantages that will even see AMR factory driver Darren Turner feature in the driver line up for the longer Fuji 500 event with a team who have swapped allegiances from Porsche

What has been described as 'long term partnership' sees Aston Martin as a brand return to the Asian car markets in race form with D'Station Racing AMR at what could be a critical time for them having lost previous Partner teams Craft Bamboo and Miedecke Motorsport from the that particular theatre of racing.

The significances of yesterday's events was also hailed on social media by Aston Martin Lagonda's CEO Dr Andy Palmer as a significant event for the brand who basically race what they sell and who have gone through an extensive period of brand promotion and physical presence within the opening Chinese markets but also with more mainstream Asian locations.


This new full partner status team - D'Station Racing AMR will compete in the GT 300 class with full time and highly experienced Super GT drivers Tomonobu Fujii and Joāo Paulo Oliveira.

President of D'station Racing AMR Satoshi Hoshino said: “We are very proud to race with Aston Martin in the Japanese Super GT championship. As a team we believe the Vantage GT3 can lead us to great success and we are excited to be playing a part in the new Vantage racing story from the beginning of its career.”