A great shame to read today that former Aston Martin Racing young gun, Richie Stanaway has elected to hang up his race suit and helmet at the end of this year.

Formerly a single seater racer, Kiwi Stanaway became a firm fan favourite and hot lap qualifying expect during his days as an AMR factory driver in the World Endurance Championship as well as in guesting roles for other AMR's customer cars in events such as the European Le Mans Series and British GT.


Last featuring as a full AMR driver in the 2016 season when he shared the sometimes Valero livered #97 V8 Vantage GTE with Fernando Rees and Alex MacDowall (amongst many others during his time with the Prodrive based team) he then went on to return home to compete in the Australian V8 Supercars Series leaving his established and successful GT pathway behind.

We will remember him fondly for his actions at the WEC round at Silverstone in '16 where an engine blowup put his car out of the race only for him to catch one of the many circuit buses that transport fans between the two pit lanes and back to his garage - cool as a cucumber, helmet still on and visor down without saying a word!!

We last saw him when his raced the #96 RoFGO GTE in the ELMS on that same double header weekend at Silverstone in 2016 with Roald Goethe and Stuart Hall when they could have/should have won the race before eventually finishing P4 after a post race penalty was applied for an incident during Stanway's final stint.


His return to V8 racing back home didn't really go to plan with accident and incident blighting his race and championship performances, compounded more recently with personal injury that it is presumably that has lead to this decision.

A post on his Instagram page reads "After wearing a helmet for 23 years, I feel it's time to make this announcement. I never thought my career in motorsport would be so short".


"It's not a decision I take lightly, but it's like that. I have gone further than I ever imagined and I will never be able to thank enough everyone who has been with me. It's time for me to open a new chapter. "

Good luck to this young man in whatever he choses to do after this!

Photo credits - Social media / AMR