Confirmed today as adding D’Station Racings return to the GT300 class of their topflight domestic GT series to that of their WEC commitments sees the new Evo’d version of the AMR Vantage GT3 take to the circuits of Japan alongside D’Station Racing Team Manager Tomonobu Fujii.

A busy eight round series starting in mid-April at Okayama will greet the new duo as well as two official series test days at both Okayama and at their home track of Fuji Speedway the month before.

Next, we saw the Automatic Racing supported Stoner Car Care team confirm a return to the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series and a return to a season opening four-hour affair at the Daytona 24hr early next month with their Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4.

Having taken something of a sabbatical from the series last season in favour of series such as the World Racing League, the ironically liveried GT4 is back with Brandon Kidd again supporting team stalwarts of Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi.

So far, the entry list for next week’s Roar before the 24 Test from Daytona for either the Michelin Pilot Challenge of VP Racing Sportscar Challenge Series have yet to be officially revealed but we do expect a healthier AMR contingent spread between the two this season.

Finally, another new AMR recruit in the German based and freshly renamed for the new season in Sax Motorsport also confirm the first AMR Vantage GT4 driver line up for within the ADAC GT4 Germany Series this year.

Denis Bulatov and Phillip Gogollok remain with the team for another season but transfer to the Aston Martin platform from the Mercedes AMG GT4 of last season like team will be doing. Finishing one step higher in the Driver’s Championship will certainly be the ambition of this crew.

Photo credits – IMSA / Teams / social media / Andrew Lofthouse

With other OEM’s realigning their own driver needs also allowed fresh blood to be droughted into what is being labelled as another busy racing season for the AMR brand and their Partner teams with the imminent release of both the new 2024 Vantage GT3 and GT4 platforms.

Long associated with AMR through both TF Sport and Northwest AMR within the WEC (and others) finally sees the talented Portuguese Henrique Chaves join the fray alongside that of Nurburgring legend David Pittard to the 2024 roster with that of reigning GT World Challenge Sprint Cup Champion Mattia Drudi to round off a talent pool to be proud of despite the recent loss of Charlie Eastwood.

With new teams selecting the 2024 Vantage platform ahead of the new season and with the unavoidable clashing of major sporting dates within the GT programme, extra hands will also be needed to assist Aston Martin Racing’s Partner teams.

Whilst they prepare themselves for next season, the Viper Niza Aston Martin Racing team rounded off their 2023 Thailand Super Series season in fine form last weekend as Douglas Khoo (with the help of Dominic Ang of course) secured himself two P3 Am Class podiums to round off their first full season with their AMR Vantage GT3 from the Chang International Circuit.

With them entering their LMP3 for this winter’s Asian Le Mans Series, we wait to see whether they will be taking delivery of any 2024 Evo’d version of the Vantage GT3 over the coming months.

Again, looking forward to 2024 - (first the good news) in that both the Van Der Steur (Brady Behrman) and Archangel squads (Todd Coleman) appear to be readying themselves ahead of an IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series return early next year alongside Team TGM whilst (now the bad news) it does appear that the #37 Modena Silverstone AMR Vantage GT3 for both the 24H Series visit to Dubai as well as the 6H Abu Dhabi event have now been scratched and removed from the available entry list.

Whilst this piece does start with a photo of the GMB Motorsport AMR Vantage GTE sitting proudly within the office area of the Danish based team, one post upon their social media does suggest that the ‘Old Lady’ has now been retired after its one and only season within the European Le Mans Series this year!

To round off the 2023 with some good news at least sees the German based BCMC Motorsport and Eastside Motorsport teams formally merge together to create the SAX Motorsport team with potential AMR Vantage GT4 entries into both the ADAC GT4 Germany and GT4 European Series next year. Driver announcements from them are apparently imminent!

That all being said, it just leaves us to say thank you all for watching with us in 2023 and we hope to see you all back in 2024.

Happy holidays

Photo credits – Teams / social media