Welcome to BCMC and Eastside Motorsport teams to the AMR family in 2024
Having raced technically separate (but in conjunction with one another this season as BCMC Motorsport and Eastside Motorsport), 2024 will see both teams formally merge into one as they continue with their existing ADAC GT4 Germany and GT4 European Series commitments with the AMR Vantage GT4 chassis in lieu of their existing Mercedes AMG GT4 cars of late.
Having come second within the ADAC GT4 Germany Series to the Championship defending Prosport Racing duo of Mike David Ortmann and Hugo Sasse with their #1 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, the team has obviously seen value for their young customer drivers being able to be part of the AMR Drivers Academy process as well as having an already competitive package from AMR.
Based upon what happens next season with the Vantage GT4, the team are also proposing to take another step up the GT ladder into the GT Masters Series with the all-new Vantage GT3 the year after, but that is yet to be confirmed.
Having lost both the Team Speed Monkeys and Dorr Motorsport from the German domestic GT4 scene this year, this announcement is obviously a welcomed boost.
Photo credits - Team
Monday, November 06, 2023 |
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Bullitt Racing confirm their trio of drivers for their forthcoming Asian Le Mans Series entry
Having joyously announced their entry acceptance within the ACO rules series just a few weeks ago, the Stephen Pattrick led team today went on to confirm a three-driver crew for the four hour – four quick succession round series that will again be split between the Dubai Autodrome circuit and the Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi.
Joining their ‘resident’ AMR factory driver within the team that is Valentin Hasse-Clot came the confirmation that a diverse gold, silver and bronze line up of a teenaged German, Jacob Riegel would join the Frenchman alongside the Singapore based Australian bronze rated driver of Martin Berry.
With certainly Hasse-Clot and Riegel having tested together last time out in Portimao, the move will mark a continuation of a momentous rise for the young German after having only debuted himself in GT4 racing last year with the Team Speed Monkeys AMR team in the now defunct DTM Trophy Series.
Despite his grade, Berry will bring his own extent of racing experiences from both the German Prototype Cup, Super Taikyu Series and the former Blancpain GT Series.
Team Manager Steffan Pattrick added that “I’m proud to confirm that Bullitt Racing will race in the Asian Le Mans Series. We’re expecting some fantastic racing and to carry over our Michelin Le Mans Cup learnings. It’s fantastic to have Valentin back in our car. He’s always tremendously fast, experienced and is of course an Aston Martin Racing factory driver. With us last year, he secured podiums at the Road to Le Mans and Monza and was crucial to our success.
“Our Silver is Jacob and we have been working with him closely over the last few months; he’s developing quickly off the back of a strong season in ADAC. We believe he is ready to step up to GT3 competition and the Asian Le Mans Series and he brings a great deal of performance to the line-up.
“Martin is well known in the paddock and will be our bronze driver. He’s been racing a great deal in Asia in recent years with significant achievements. We’re delighted to be working with Martin and delighted that he has put his trust in Bullitt Racing and that he recognises our growth and results and that we are now a top team in GT3 with clear ambitions to achieve strong results.
“Our overall objective remains to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and this platform proves us with an opportunity to get there. So, we’re naturally very excited to be racing in the series and we’re also looking forward to our other race programmes in 2023.”
Having chatted with the team on-line after today’s announcement, the point was made that Stephen Pattrick may not be figuring in much of the teams indicated 2023 activities as was his plan but to remember the saying of “never say never!”
The ALMS series kicks off in Dubai over the weekend of the 11-12th February before the final two races at Yas Marina just the weekend later and compliments the slightly older TF Sport AMR crew already announced. That leaves just the crews of the Viper Niza and Eves Racing Aston Martin's to be confirmed.
Photo credits – Bullitt Racing / Team Speed Monkeys / David Lord
Thursday, December 15, 2022 |
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PROsport Racing see out the NLS series with another multi-car AMR effort
For the Christophe Esser squad, 2022 has been their busiest season so far since they adopted the new Aston Martin Racing Vantage platforms with huge race and championship winning success across the multiple series that their Vantage GT3 and GT4 cars have entered with lots more in store for 2023.
This weekend sees them run just two AMR platforms – the #17 GT3 Pro-Am Vantage for drivers Maxime Dumarey and Jean Glorieux as well as the #176 GT4 of Guido Dumarey and Yevgen Sokolovskiy.
The latter Ukrainian driver raced with the team at last weekend’s FIA Motorsport Games event at Paul Ricard alongside co-driver Ivan Peklin who races within the teams ‘training’ Porsches in the same NLS event.
Further down the list we also see Team Speed Monkeys Jacob Riegel take his first steps in attaining his Nordschleife Permit within a BMW M240i Class car after his first GT season within the DTM Trophy Series.
This weekend’s finale will be a four-hour affair.
Photo credits – Teams
Thursday, November 03, 2022 |
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DTM Trophy season ends with no reward for their efforts from the Team Speed Monkeys AMR crew
With the GT4 only championship practically already wrapped up by the dominant Toyota GT Supra car of Tim Heinemann, the final two races had all the pressures off for the two Vantage GT4 drivers of Jacob Riegel and Nick Hancke although personal pride and finishing on a positive point was obviously still at stake.
A pole position setting time ahead of race one for Riegel was something to cheer in its infancy but a three-place grid drop from race officials for apparent track limit violations at the previous round at the Red Bull Ring saw the #63 car start from the second row.
With Hancke on something of a recovery drive following his qualifying run, an errant BMW put paid to his race one ambitions after contact at the haircut left the #99 with broken front suspension and yet another DNF to his tally for the season.
Race one wouldn’t go too much better for Riegel either as his P4 start ended being a P7 finish by the end.
Qualifying for Sunday’s finale was also something of a sombre affair as the best that Riegel could do was P7 whilst Hancke again struggled back in P13 before an early Safety car for yet more race ending contact for (this time) a Mercedes quietened things down again.
At the restart however, Hanke’s season went from bad to worse as Hancke was pushed wide over the start line before spinning out into turn one and retirement into the first corner – so nearly claiming his teammate in the process.
Just sixteen minutes remained at that second restart as Riegel hoped to progress from his then P4 position, but it was clear that the terminal velocity of the AMR was not the same of the other marques around him before getting pinged by Race Control for driving standards (bitter irony there) having just bumped an Audi off track going into a braking zone in the stadium complex.
Despite coming back out the last of the runners, Riegel did manage to cross the line in P14 but was elevated to P12 post-race to mark the end of his first GT4 season, finishing eight in the championship with Hancke in tenth.
Photo credits – Team Speed Monkeys
Monday, October 10, 2022 |
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DTM Trophy to bow out this season at Hockenheim finale
Having been sometimes highly entertaining and other times brutally damaging, the GT4 based series has been all but won by previous championship winner Tim Heinemann and his Toyota GR Supra after his cars balance of performance setting for the previous round at the Red Bull Ring was adjusted back up in time for the second race and for him to all but secure the title again.
Infuriating for some, his runaway success has somewhat sullied an otherwise good series with a further three drivers who would have otherwise been in contention had the series BoP process worked correctly.
Included within that are both Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 cars of both Nick Hancke (#99) and Jacob Riegel (#63) who presently lie ninth and tenth within the drivers table separated by just four points after various challenging events between them over the season but a race win for either driver at this final event would elevate them up to the sharper end of the table such is the narrow points separation within the midfield.
A podium finish in race 1 in Austria for Riegel was sadly the best results that they could muster, specifically after the Toyota was reinvigorated again ahead of race 2.
It’s certainly been fun having the Team Speed Monkey team online this season with their AMR Vantage GT4 platforms and hopefully we will see them out again in them soon.
Photo credits - Team
Wednesday, October 05, 2022 |
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Not a good word to say again about the DTM Trophy Series
The Series is no longer worthy of the efforts and financial investment by drivers like Riegel and his teammate Nick Hanke when it continues to make poor decisions like this and fail to guard the lowering of driver standards by some who compete in it.
The series concludes in two weeks time at Hockenheim.
Photo Credits – Team.
Photo Credits – Team.
Sunday, September 25, 2022 |
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DTM Trophy reaches its penultimate round at the Red Bell Ring with just pride and progress the aim for the Team Speed Monkey AMR runners
Last time out for the two Team Speed Monkeys Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews at Spa Francorchamps just two weeks ago were better for the two solo driver crews of Nick Hancke and Jacob Riegel after the ‘pain’ of the Nurburgring even though their cars had been given a 25kg increase in base weight in time for Spa.
Their collective results just outside of the top three however saw their championship aspirations completely evaporate as the leading Toyota of Tim Heinemann was again permitted to dominate the event in the strongest and obvious way possible and despite a supposed retardation in his car’s overall performance via a change in engine mapping by the series.
His sixty-point lead over the BMW driver in second makes the run in to the end of the season sadly almost a pointless process with both Hancke and Riegel positioned in P7 and P9 in the table, each over one hundred points short of the leaders current tally with just one hundred points being available over the four remaining races.
Being young racing drivers however, we are sure that both will give their trip to Austria their best shot with neither having managed to stand upon the top step of the podium – yet!
Both thirty-five-minute sprint races will again be streamed live via the series social media channels or on Motorsport TV.
Photo credits - Team
Tuesday, September 20, 2022 |
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No joy for Team Speed Monkeys as the DTM Trophy visits Spa Francorchamps
Again, running amongst the eighteen strong entry list were the two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crews of Nick Hancke and Jacob Riegel with their two Team Speed Monkeys prepared cars.
After a difficult return to racing after the long summer break at the Nurburgring the other week, the two AMR crews found themselves fighting for the scraps towards the rear of the pack come the end of each race with the prospect of competing at Spa with additional ballast applied as part of a revised BoP regime.
Despite some tough and typically Spa track conditions earlier into the event, the #99 car of Hancke was able to Qualify on the second row of the grid for Saturdays opener whilst Riegel had to settle for eighth.
By the end of the opening thirty-five-minute race, Hancke finished just short of a podium in P4 to help make up for some hard times during recent rounds at the Norisring and Imola whilst Riegel drifted back into P11 to miss out on any Championship points.
Sundays second race of the weekend was a better affair at the end as despite Qualifying second, Riegel would go onto finish fourth whilst Hancke would improve from his P11 start to finish just behind in fifth.
Now sadly way off the Championship leading mark, the remainder of the season has those pressures removed from them as the series moves onto the Red Bull Ring in Austria at the end of the month.
Photo credits - Team
Tuesday, September 13, 2022 |
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Astons have the pounds piled on ahead of DTM Trophy visit to Spa
Having returned from their long summer break at the Nurburgring last weekend, the two Team Speed Monkeys AMR’s of Jacob Riegel and Nick Hancke each struggled with performance compared to others, but the Vantage has now been hit with a whopping +50kg ballast increase ahead of Spa whilst the double lights to flag winning Toyota of the Nurburgring gets just a +15kg increase and engine map change.
Whilst the characteristics of the two circuits are admittedly different, the short sprint race format of the Series will make a good result difficult before any other eventualities are added into the mix.
Photo Credits – Team Speed Monkeys
Sunday, September 04, 2022 |
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A frustrating return to the DTM Trophy Series for Team Speed Monkeys
Despite the long summer break, it was to be a damaging and frustrating return to the DTM Trophy Series for the two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s of the Team Speed Monkeys crew as the series resumed at the Nurburgring this weekend.
Early pace during Free Practice of the #63 car of Jacob Riegel and the #99 of Nick Hancke on Friday was sadly not put to the test on Saturday as all track action was halted due to thick fog with all running on the first race day being put seriously into question.
Fortunately as the hours passed, the fog was to break up enough for racing to be permitted with the series decreeing that Championship position would determine the starting positions for race one meaning that the two Aston’s would be starting from the fourth row.
On the long drag to turn one, both Astons would get boxed in amongst the eighteen cars descending into the opening corner, dropping to P11 and P12 respectively as those ahead began to forge a gap between them.
That would be the case until just into lap 12 as the cameras panned to a #63 car nosed into the tyre wall with smoke and flame coming from under the bonnet on the drivers far side. The body language of an exiting Riegel would suggest that he was placed there by another driver, but his race was done and so was that for all as the race would end behind the required Safety Car. Hancke would finish in P9.
Sundays race was at least under blue skies and warm sunshine again as fastest laps dictated the order for the two Aston’s to start on the fifth row this time around.
Another clean few opening corners were had but their first journey through the chicane saw Hancke take a hard sideways hit from a BMW, lifting the offside wheels off the ground but at least he was able to continue.
Riegel was also in the thick of it again as he battled into P6 whilst his teammate was recovering to P11 after his earlier contact. With the lead Toyota again in a class of its own (most likely just on BoP rather than driver ability), there was again no way back for any of the chasing group as the weekend’s racing fizzled out into a processional finish with Riegel claiming P7 at the end with Hancke in P11.
Next round of the series will be at Spa Francorchamps in two weeks’ time.
Photo credits – Team Speed Monkeys
Sunday, August 28, 2022 |
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DTM Trophy back in busy this weekend from the Nurburgring with two AMR Vantage GT4's
Also representing the start of their homeward stretch to their 2022 season after rounds from the Lausitzring, Imola and most recently from the street circuit of the Norisring in early July, this weekend sees both Team Speed Monkeys Aston Martin Vantage GT4’s return to racing after a disastrous round at the Safety Car plagued visit to the Norisring.
With driving standards clearly an issue for many around that tight circuit, both Aston Martins of Nick Hancke and Jacob Riegel suffered damage during the two rounds with the #63 car of Riegel appearing to be substantially damaged after being collected at a vast rate of knots from behind by another car at the hairpin after they missed their braking point.
At the second round of the series, both drivers were fully upon the pace to challenge for decent points but a double no score for Riegel and only ten points for Hancke has left them both over forty points behind the present Drivers Championship leader in eight place.
Another two races around the 3.6km Nurburgring Sprint circuit with a thirty-five-minute race apiece over both Saturday and Sunday.
Photo credits – Team / Series
Thursday, August 25, 2022 |
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Mirage Racing come back to GT4 European with their AMR Vantage GT4 and a new crew?
French team Mirage Racing have today posted that they too will be entering the series for the first time this season (which resumes at the Hockenheim ring next weekend) and that news will see a return of last years racer Ruben Del Sarte to the squad to partner ADAC GT4 Germany Aston Martin Racing driver Paul Aurel-Konig.
This will form another silver ranked pairing although (presumably) comes at the cost of a lost entry within the AGS Events Racing team whom Del Sarte raced with (partnered by Tom Verdier) up until now.
We have already seen a ‘rationalisation’ of crews within the AGS Events team for their FFSA GT4 commitments with Del Sarte noted to have wanted to return to that team for the start of the FFSA GT4 Series for the start of that season.
Last season, Del Sarte partnered Tom Canning with the GT4 European Series whilst König comes from the Porsche stable in GT4, having only recently changed to the AMR Vantage GT4 platform in the German GT4 series with the Team Speed Monkeys team.
Photo credits – Team / FFSA / ADAC GT4 Germany / Social media
Tuesday, August 23, 2022 |
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A revised nine AMR Vantage GT4 car effort gets ready for ADAC GT4 Germany from the Nurburgring
For the nine Aston Martin Racing powered teams that entered round three, it was an emphatic display from the #24 PROsport Racing car of Mike David-Ortmann and Hugo Sasse who converted two outright pole positions into two overall race wins to elevate themselves up the Drivers Championship leader board.
There were also further podium finishes for the #7 Dorr Motorsport Aston Martin of Ben Dorr and Romain Leroux who finished just behind the #24 car each time as well as the #48 PROsport Racing car of Yevgen Sokolovskiy and Christopher Rohner who finished third and second in their own Trophy class.
This time around in Germany, we still see nine Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s but with a small twist in who.
This time around in Germany, we still see nine Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s but with a small twist in who.
Having raced at Zandvoort as a one-off, the Team Speed Monkeys car of Jacob Riegel and Marc de Fulgencio is not amongst this weekend’s provisional entry list (obviously), but the numbers have been made up with a third car from PROsport Racing.
Again, we see both the #24 and #48 full season cars as listed above, but we also see the addition of another (as yet) un-numbered car for German drivers Leon Wassertheurer and Donar Munding. Wassertheurer is already a contender within the ADAC GT4 Germany Series having competed with the W&S Motorsport team in one of their Porsche’s whilst Munding steps across to GT4’s for the first time having competed previously in various LMP3 series.
Other returning entries include the #99 Team Speed Monkeys car of Paul Aural König and Konstantin Lachenauer after their series debut together in Holland, the #6 Racing One entry from Tom Wood and Euan McKay as well as the remaining Dorr entries for #69 Phil/Indy Dontjie, #95 Simon Connor Prim/Nico Hantke and the #97 car for brothers Sandro/Juliano Holzem.
Championship wise, Phil Dorr and Dontjie still lead the overall table by five points from both Sasse/David-Ortmann and Ben Dorr and Romain Leroux with Wood/McKay some thirty-one points behind them.
In the Junior Class, Sasse leads Leroux and Ben Dorr by six with Sokolovskiy in joint third in the Trophy class with Dorr Motorsport thirty points ahead of PROsport Racing the teams table.
Photo credits – ADAC GT4 Germany / Teams
Photo credits – ADAC GT4 Germany / Teams
Tuesday, August 02, 2022 |
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Despicable scenes in DTM Trophy as the Norisring turned into a literal crash fest
The last round of the series from Imola had been very good as a race spectacle and showed the GT4 based series in a very positive light until we got to the street circuit around the city of Nuremburg.
Eighteen cars entered Saturday’s first thirty-minute race, including the two Team Speed Monkeys Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4s of Jacob Riegel (#63) and Nick Hancke (#99).
Qualifying P10 and P13 respectively after a wet build up to a dry race, an early technical issue for the pace setting Audi brought of the Safety Car for the first time in what was already a fast and furious race. Taking their new side by side restart, contact at the opening hairpin left the #99 car of Hancke delayed but three cars out with damage – Safety Car no. 2.
Another restart – more contact bringing out the Safety Car again had just twelve cars circulating on lap 22 as the race went green again only for more contact at the hairpin, this time heavy rear end contact for the #63 car of Riegel which ended his and the #17 Audis race on the spot with significant damage each.
Race 1 would eventually finish from behind the Safety Car with Hancke finishing a lowly P7.
Then Sundays second “crash fest” event saw Riegel not being able to take part but with the #17 also being absent from the grid.
Again, the first visit to the hairpin on the opening lap saw four more cars eliminated on the spot through contact with each other and themselves including contact for the sole AMR of Hancke being unsighted at the time. All of that was caused from the action of former AMR PROsport Racing DTM Trophy racer Tim Heinemann using the car infront as a brake!
Having to pit for running repairs to the front right quarter of his car, Hancke’s race was already run being a lap down by the time he returned to the Safety Car procession. Fourteen laps to clear the carnage followed by two laps of green before more contact and debris across the racetrack that saw the sixth car retire from this race alone.
For the academic side of all of this, Hancke would finish P9 and those points placed him on equal points with teammate Riegel as all count the cost of visiting such an unfit for purpose racetrack before thinking of moving on the next round at the Nurburgring in August.
Something really does need to be done by the series to improve driving standards and track safety for all who are there!!
Photo credits - team
Sunday, July 03, 2022 |
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