Today sees 160 cars confirmed for this years ADAC Total 24H race from the Nordschleife in just over three weeks time, this year featuring four examples of the new 2109 specification Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4 as well as the venerable and former class winning Aston Martin Vantage GT8.

The two AMR Vantage GT4's being entered and supported by the local AMR Performance Centre in the SP8T class includes those who undertook the events Qualifying Race at the circuit two weeks ago and again includes double driving duties for AMR factory driver Darren Turner aboard both of them.

The other two AMR Vantage GT4 cars are being entered by the PROsport Performance AMR Partner team and will compete within the SP10 class, a move that Aston Martin have often utilised in to avoid the factory competing directly against its customer cars.


Despite previous communications, it sadly appears that AMR factory reserve driver Ross Gunn will now not be involved with either of the two factory supported GT4's with his place now being taken by Turner as he will switch between cars just like he did at the Qualifying Race. The GT8 and the two PROsport Performance entered cars will be strictly customer based but the names with the GT8 car being very familiar to those who follow the VLN Series.

Driver line up are confirmed as being

#35 Aston Martin Vantage GT8 SP8 Class
Marco Muller
Tony Richards
David Thilenius
Heinz Jurgen Kroner

#36 AMR Performance Centre Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 SP8T Class
Darren Turner
Chris Goodwin
Chris Harris
Christian Gebhardt

#37 AMR Performance Centre Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 SP8T Class
Darren Turner
Jamie Chadwick
Peter Cate
Alex Brundle

#68 PROsport Performance Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 SP10 Class 
Christoph Breuer
Kay van Berlo
Alexander Mies
Mike David Ortmann


#76 PROsport Performance Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 SP10 Class
Jorg Viebahn
Nicolaj Moller-Madson
Jonas Lappeleinen




The race takes place over the weekend of 22-23rd June - the weekend after Le Mans 24.


Photo credits - AMR / GT4 European Series

After many more months and thousands of kilometres later, the first competitive track action for the new Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 has finally been confirmed today as being at the penultimate round of the VLN Series at the infamous Green Hell.

First hinted at by AMR's President David King back in May at the ADAC Zurich 24H event, the team have finally confirmed that AMR factory and development driver Darren Turner will be at the helm of their factory's latest GT3 creation with World Endurance Championship team mate Maxime Martin and will compete in the SPX class due to the chassis present non-homologated state.


Data from this year's N24 event from aboard their V12 Vantage GT3 platform will be compared against that being received from the new car during the VLN8 event so makes the event extremely useful to the team and their technicians before the all in important and defining homolagating process begins early next year.

Also confirmed to race at VLN8 will be AMR's WEC reserve driver Ross Gunn who will compete at the Nordschleife for the very first time alongside new recently recruited Aston Martin Lagonda high performance development driver Chris Goodwin in one of the Test Centres Vantage GT4's as both start their path to their full GT3 Nordschleife permit.


Turner will also be on double driving duty that weekend as he will also be listed with another AMR Performance Centre entry for Jurgen Kroner and Marco Muller in the Vantage S.

Since the new Vantage GT3's world debut at the Le Mans Festival back in June the chassis has undertaken thousands of laps of developmental testing all over Europe as well as being made available to the factory's customer teams to test and order ready for the 2019 season. "It is the perfect place to test the car in a competitive environment as we sharpen areas of its development ahead of its homologation" said David King at the announcement.



In terms of the VLN Series itself, it will be great to see more Aston Martin's at the event seeing that the last few rounds have struggled to attract any significant volumes of the marque from amongst their customer base. Last weekend at the VLN7 event saw only Marco Muller and Erik Manning complete in the event aboard the Performance Centre's #150 car as full season entrant's AVIA Racing failed to start the event due to ongoing technical issues with their own GT4 and it is yet known whether they will enter that event or not.

The VLN8 four hour race will be on Saturday 6th October.

Photo credits - AMR

Aston Martin's Vantage GT8 survived another round of the VLN Series yesterday and earned itself another class podium to boot for its efforts.

Heinz Jurgen Kroner was this time accompanied by previous VLN driver acquaintances in Tony Richard and David Thilenius around the infamous Nordschleife circuit to earn themselves third position SP8 class finishing two laps behind the class winning Ferrari in Saturday's four hour race.


Returning the car to the local AMR Performance Centre in one piece at least allows the team simple routine works to prepare the car for its next outing around the circuit for this weekend coming for the ADAC N24 Qualifying race.


Peter Cate returns to the car he won the SP8 class in last year at the N24 alongside co drivers Darren Turner, Nicki Thiim and Markus Lungstrass. He will share the car at the 2018 event with F3 racer and former GT4 Champion Jamie Chadwick and saloon racer and motor journalist Jens Dralle.