On the eve of their first racing commitment this season has had the Japanese D’Station Racing team confirm their final piece of missing information in terms of driver line up for their headline Championship commitment.

Returning to the TF Sport team for a second full season of the World Endurance Championship with the Sussex based team and one of their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE, has the Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii lead #777 car confirm young silver ranked driver Charlie Fagg as their third man leading into Season 10 of the WEC that starts at Sebring in just a few weeks.

Last season running with Andrew Watson as their silver driver, this announcement marks a serious career progression for Fagg as last having raced in GT4, winning the GT4 European Series Silver Cup Championship alongside Bailey Voisin.

“I’m delighted to announce that I will be racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship with D’station Racing. To be able to compete at this level is something I have always dreamt of doing and to do it with such a fantastic team is more than I could have hoped for! Whilst it’s a big step up, I am honoured to be able to learn from my fantastic teammates, Hoshino-san and Fujii-san and being able to make my 24 Hours of Le Mans debut with them, is the icing on the cake. I cannot thank everyone at D’station Racing, TF Sport and EDGE Management enough, for this unbelievable opportunity. I am so excited to get started next month at Sebring!” said Fagg with todays announcement.

This news confirms the quartet of series/championships that the Fuji based team will be entering this season with their fleet (and others) of AMR Vantage race cars. This weekend of course opens their ACO account with the Asian Le Mans Series from Dubai alongside their recently confirmed entries into the domestic Super Taikyu Series and well as the Japan Cup legs of the revitalised GT World Challenge Asia Series this year.

Photo credits – TF Sport

This weekend also sees the final round of the Japanese Super Taikyu Series take place from Okayama Circuit with another packed multi-class grid of over fifty cars expected for the final three-hour event.

Whilst the D’Station Racing Team would normally be expected to field both an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 and a Vantage GT4, their #777 GT3 crew of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Tsubasa Kondo secured the ST-X (GT3) Championship at the last round from Suzuka.

That was just as well as both Hoshino and Fujii would have been required to self-isolate after their return from Bahrain where they and third driver Andrew Watson completed their first World Endurance Championship season together with two tough races in the desert to finish ninth overall at their first time of asking.

That leaves the team’s #47 AMR Vantage GT4 crew of Tatsuya Hoshino, Max Orido, Takuro Shinohara and Kenji Hama to fight it out in their thirteen strong ST-Z (GT4) class where they presently stand P2 in class going into this weekend’s finale where they lay just 9.5 points behind the class leading #3 Endless AMG GT4 team.

Photo credits – D’Station Racing

Congratulations to the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Am crew of Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera for claiming the 2021 Drivers and Team’s Championships in the most emphatic way possible.

From that, you can safely deduce that the final round of the 2021 World Endurance Championship sadly did not go in favour of the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga as their final hope of Championship success disappeared on the opening lap after contact with the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana.

Whilst Keating was to later question incident responsibility towards the Canadian, it mattered not to either crew as both had to visit pit lane to replace broken wheels losing each of them virtually one lap and the Championship for the #33 crew.

Again, we saw another extra-ordinary opening stint from Tomonobu Fujii aboard his #777 D’Station Racing AMR who like last weekend, took his green car from P11 in class to take the class lead within the opening hour although he would be penalised for contact in taking the class lead with a drive through penalty.

They too were to suffer further misfortunate in the race before darkness had even fallen as Satoshi Hoshino was rudely spun around by the #85 Iron Lynx Ferrari dropping them down to the middle order.

By the third hour, the three Aston’s had recovered to all be running within the middle order of the class but the #83 was already at the top end of the timing screen as the race transitioned from day to dusk and then onto night conditions.

The #98 again got spun around into the fourth hour as the #88 Dempsey Proton Porsche lunged in for position stealing away valuable time recovered by them since their lap one incident.

At the halfway stage, the #33 was up to P3 in class (albeit due to differing pit stop strategies from those around them) but the final nail in their 2021 season was to come just after halfway through Keating’s next stint in the car (then in P6) when a late lunge by him into T1 caught the #54 AF Corse off guard and contact was made between the two cars.

Taking the car into the garage for front quarter suspension repairs – that was it for the #33 cars season as, despite gallant repairs from the team, the car would later return to pit lane to be retired from the race.

A cruel end to the season for the Aston Martin runners as none of the cars were able to establish a run sequence that would ‘put on a good show’ if nothing else after the last gasps of championship ambition were extinguished. Like Keating said earlier in the race, the season had been blighted with lost opportunity but with lessons learned and now complete familiarity with the team and machinery, 2022 will be stronger year for the American.

The best placed Aston was the #777 D’Station Racing car of Fujii, Hoshino and Andrew Watson as they rounded off their first full WEC season with an Aston in P8 with the #98 Northwest AMR of Dalla Lana, Fraga and Gomes in P11 and the last of the runners.

The #83 AF Corse Ferrari completed the race and Championship winning season by winning the GTE Am Class although todays results were still enough for the #33 crew to be confirmed as 2021 GTE Am Vice Champions.

It’s been a great year – not quite what we had first hoped but that’s motor racing. We are certainly looking forward to 2022 already but the next step for all three cars will be tomorrow's Rookie Test - something we get the feeling will be used by AMR to determine the winner of this years Driver's Academy?

Photo credits – Adrenal Media / AMR / TF Sport

The scene has now been set ahead of tomorrow’s final, Championship deciding round of the World Endurance Championship from the Bahrain International Circuit.

After the final three Free Practice sessions of the season and then the final Qualifying session, we at least now know of the order that the thirteen GTE Am cars will be starting tomorrow’s race, but it will take the whole eight hours of the final race to be able to crown the GTE Am Drivers and Team Champions.

The battle royale in class of course stands between the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera and the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga who enter this race 21.5 points behind the Ferrari crew after the #33 car claimed their class win last weekend in the six-hour race.

We understand that the #83 crew need to finish P4 or higher to take the crown regardless of where the #33 car finishes to claim their prize but as we have seen many times before, those coming from behind have nothing to lose as the race pressures will be faced more by the championship leading Ferrari crew.

On the flip side of that, all the Ferrari 488 GTE cars in GTE Am have received an increase in fuel capacity at the start of this final round as well as a small increase in turbo boost across its declared rev range and whilst the Qualifying lap times for the three Aston’s have remained similar to what they achieved in last week’s race, the laps times of the Ferrari crews have improved – not just over a one lap Qualifying position but also through longer runs in Free Practice too.

At the conclusion of Qualifying earlier today, the #33 car of Keating finished fifth quickest in class, the #98 Northwest car of Paul Dalla Lana in sixth with the #777 D’Station Racing car of Satoshi Hoshino in eleventh after both he and Dalla Lana had a lap deleted for infringing track limits.

The trouble is that the #83 claimed a P2 starting position so it will be a long race to the end for the guys in the blue TF Sport supported Aston Martin.

Fingers crossed!

Photo credits – Adrenal Media (WEC) / TF Sport

The world championship-winning Aston Martin Vantage GTE returned to a glorious vein of form in the Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain, when AMR partner team TF Sport triumphed in Saturday’s fifth round of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship [WEC].

Powered by a four-litre, twin-turbo-charged V8 engine derived from the road car, the Vantage swept all before it to win the 2019/20 FIA GT Manufacturers’ crown and helped Nicki Thiim (DEN) and Marco Sørensen (DEN) to the GTE Pro crown in the same season. Now it’s once again proving a force in GTE Am in the hands of TF Sport, Paul Dalla Lana’s NorthWest AMR team and D’station Racing.

But it was TF Sport’s #33 crew of Ben Keating (USA), Dylan Pereira (LUX) and Felipe Fraga (BRA) that earned an emphatic first GTE Am class win of the season for Vantage, underlining their inspired run of form this season, following an impressive charge to second place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in September.

Keating, Pereira and Fraga executed a strategic masterclass in Bahrain. The American completed two accomplished stints in fierce temperatures upwards of 35 degrees Celsius at the desert venue, before handing over the Vantage to Pereira in the third hour. The Luxembourg national was then able to capture the lead and build a gap that Fraga consolidated in the final portion of the race. Despite intense pressure from various class opposition, Fraga kept his cool and took the chequered flag with a mere five seconds in hand.

Each of the three Aston Martin customer teams led during the race, with the Japanese-based D’station squad of Tomonobu Fujii (JPN), Satoshi Hoshino (JPN) and Andrew Watson (GBR) also surging to the front in the first hour. This preceded a turn in the lead for the #98 NorthWest AMR machine, entered and driven by Dalla Lana (CDN), who was partnered by Marcos Gomes (BRA) and Augusto Farfus (BRA). They eventually claimed fourth position.

But it was the TF Sport trio that stood atop the GTE Am podium – their third appearance on the rostrum in 2021 – reducing the gap in the title chase to just 21.5 points. With 39 points to play for in the 8 Hour final round next Saturday, Keating, Gomes and Fraga are in a strong position to mount a concerted title challenge.

“It was really hot out there today and two hours in the car was demanding but I was able to push, and the handling was excellent, especially the brakes – which are important here in Bahrain,” commented Keating. “It’s enjoyable to have a WEC race win because we were extremely close at Spa, Monza and Le Mans, so it's really nice to get a win and narrow the gap in the standings.”

John Gaw, Managing Director of Aston Martin Racing, said: “The Aston Martin Vantage GTE has been a force throughout the WEC GTE Am season and is long overdue its first victory of the year. The nature of the win, when it finally came, was emphatic, and the fact that all three Aston Martins were contenders at various stages of the race shows what a mighty prospect the car remains in the hands of talented and motivated customers. We will do everything in our power to ensure that our partners can end the season on a high note.”

The final round of the 2021 FIA WEC is the 8 Hours of Bahrain, which will take place at BIC on Saturday, 6 November.

Source material- AMR

Bolstered by today’s confirmation that Ben Keating will be breaking with tradition and staying with TF Sport and their Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE for another season of the World Endurance Championship in 2022, there lies just one more task for the drivers and team to undertake as this weekend’s 8Hr of Bahrain race will decide the GTE Am Drivers and Team Championships.

Arriving in the Kingdom last week with a large points deficit to the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE crew of Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera, last week’s class win for the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin of Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga and three more teams stealing valuable Championship points away from the Ferrari crew has set up a final eight-hour battle that will sort for once and for all the winners of the 2021 titles.

 

After claiming two second-place finishes, at the season opener in Spa and the WEC’s blue ribband event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the crew were hungry at take top-step honours.

Starting mid-pack, in sixth, after a tricky qualifying session, the #33 bronze driver Keating wasted no time in picking off the competition and over his two one-hour stints, climbed to the class lead. 

 

As usual, the GTE Qualifying session of the World Endurance Championship has again not failed to throw everything up into the air again as previously fast cars all see their actual race starting position to end up much further back to what had been suggested earlier.

This afternoon’s GTE Qualifying ahead of Saturday’s 6Hours of Bahrain was much this case again as the early pace setting Porsches all eventually lost out to a first-time pole position for the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari and with a mix up of the three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE’s in the middle as well.

About a month ago last weekend, the World Endurance Championship should have been at the Fuji International Speedway in Japan running out their penultimate round of the ninth season before going onto Bahrain in four weeks’ time from now for the season finale.

That however, all got changed and rescheduled because of ‘you know what’ to leave us with a double visit to Bahrain to the see out the 2021 World Endurance Championship with fourteen hours of racing spread over this weekend and next.

We of course have to cast our minds way back to the 22nd August for the last round of the Championship at an also COVID-19 revised date for the 24Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de La Sarthe in France – a race that saw the extremes of motor racing for then four car Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE entries from TF Sport and Northwest Racing AMR.

One of those four cars was the TF Sport entry for their European Le Mans Series entries of John Hartshorne, Ollie Hancock and Ross Gunn and will therefore not be competing in these two rounds in the desert.

The other three Aston’s however, most certainly will with be entering both races with (by our basic mathematical input and ready reckoning) each car still in with a shout of the GTE Am Drivers and Team’s Championship’s should the results of others before them all go in their favour – easier said than done we know!!

With both a six hour race this weekend and then an eight-hour race next, the sum total of Championship points available equates to a maximum of sixty-three points, with these being split 25 points and 38 points respectively.

The #33 TF Sport entered car of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga remains the highest placed Aston crew in the GTE Am class in second having finished second at Le Mans behind the now Championship leading #83 AF Corse Ferrari crew of Francois Perroda, Nicklas Neilson and Alessio Rovera. They now stand with a 36.5 points deficit to the Ferrari crew going into Bahrain.

The #98 Northwest AMR crew of Paul Dalla Lana, Augusto Farfus (back in the squad after missing Le Mans with them) and Marcos Gomes are the next best placed Aston crew but they remain in P6 in the Championship after their promising visit to France ended in heartache and a highspeed accident for Gomes just over three hours into the twenty four hour race. They are now 58 points behind the leaders!

Finally, but by no means least is the #777 D’Station Racing AMR crew of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Andrew Watson who sit three points behind the #98 crew in the Championship after they shared the class podium at Monza with the #98 crew after the Japanese team’s first WEC podium in P3 before they went on to finish P6 in class at Le Mans.

For either the #98 crew or the #777 crew, nothing short of a race win this weekend and DNF’s or non-points scoring finishes for the crews above them in the Championship will be good enough to take things to a winner takes all finale next weekend.

Thirty-two cars are scheduled to compete in each race event with this weekend’s 6Hr being a daytime running affair but with next weekend’s 8hr an into the night race around the circuits 5.4km Grand Prix configuration.

Again, Balance of Performance comes into play with both the Ferrari 488 GTE and AMR Vantage GTE being affected by the latest round of changes. Whilst the Ferrari loses four litres of fuel capacity and turbo boost, the Aston loses two litres of fuel capacity and a small boost reduction across its declared rev range compared to how the cars ran at Le Mans.

In terms of ‘success ballast’ from favourable results beforehand, the #33 TF Sport car is the only Aston effected by this with an additional 20kg up from its declared base weight from the start of the season.

It should be interesting!!

Photo credits – Adrenal Media / WEC / Teams

Today saw the running of the official Test Day at the Circuit de La Sarthe ahead of next weekend’s running of the 89th Edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the fourth round of the World Endurance Championship.

Under virtually clear blue skies and sunshine, the three full season WEC Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE’s from TF Sport, D’Station Racing and Northwest AMR (and this time joined by TF Sport’s European Le Mans Series entered AMR GTE) all put in a appearance for the days two, four hour sessions as all four crews were mandated to do as were running with LM24 rookie drivers.

Session 1 pace setters were the #98 Northwest AMR crew of Paul Dalla Lana, Marcos Gomes and Nicki Thiim who came away fastest in GTE Am with the #777 D’Station Racing crew of Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Andrew Watson a not-so-distant P4. Looking through the individual times, a debuting Fujii was quicker than Thiim but it was another debuting driver – Marcos Gomes from the #33 TF Sport entered AMR with Ben Keating and Dylan Pereira who was the quickest Am driver of the session before they averaged out back in P12.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for the AMR contingent however, as both the #777 and #95 TF Sport car of John Hartshorne suffered accident damage after varying degrees of contact with the barriers – more so for the #95 which lost them a significant period of time as the TF Sport team set about repairing and getting the Hartshorne, Ollie Hancock and Ross Gunn back out before the end of the day.

The timing board however showed a different set of results by the end of the days final session with all four cars featuring in the second half of the table. Nothing to be concerned about their as the test day is about setting the record straight with attending where necessary and also housework within the time as in brake bedding, general familiarisation and practice before the more formal sessions of Wednesday where minimum lap times and compulsory day and night laps will also be needed from those who haven’t raced at the circuit before.

That all starts this Wednesday afternoon, by which time we should be blessed with the sights and sounds of a paying public lined around the circuit for the first time since 2019.

Photo credits – TF Sport / LM24 / Teams

What a way in ending another weekend of achievement for the many Aston Martin Racing Partner and Customer teams around the world but with two class podiums at today’s third round of the World Endurance Championship from Monza.

Racing at the home of Italian motorsport for only the first time in its relatively short history, the WEC had thirty-six runners on the gird today for a return to its customary six-hour race after its eight-hour affair at Portimao last time out. Limited crowds also welcome back to the circuit for the first time this year to see the #33 TF Sport of Ben Keating lead off the GTE Am class from its pole position with the #98 Northwest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana in P7 and the #777 of Tomonobu Fujii (a car that Satoshi Hoshino qualified) in tenth out of the fifteen class entries.