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Aston Martin Racing Return To GT Racing
After 3 years of LMP1 class Aston Martin Racing returned to GT racing by entering the FIA World Endurance Championship. The team will campaign a V8-powered Vantage in the GTE Pro category of the eight round series, which spans three continents. At the third round of the championship, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Aston Martin Racing will field a second works Vantage GTE.
Aston Martin Lagonda Chairman David Richards shared his enthusiasm for the new project: “It’s great to be returning to our core motorsport activity; production-based GT racing. It formed the basis for Aston Martin’s return to competition when the DBR9 GT1-racer was launched in 2004, and it was in GT racing that we achieved our famous victories at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008.
1st race at Sebring, Florida
Aston Martin Racing managed a credible 3rd position at the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship in the blazing heat of Florida this weekend. After 12 hours, covering 292 laps and over 1000 miles the three drivers, Darren Turner, Stefan Mucke and Adrian Fernandez mounted the podium very pleased with Aston’s return to GT racing.
The Aston Martin Racing team and the Vantage GTE performed faultlessly over the first six hours of the race, at which point no fewer than seven GTE cars were on the lead lap.
Between them, Mücke, Turner and Fernandez guided the Vantage GTE into the darkness and towards the chequered flag without any further significant faults or issues, at times close to the team’s qualifying performance in a superb display of the car’s impressive durability.
Turner was encouraged by the result as he looked ahead to the rest of the season: “This result is a great building block for the rest of the season. We hit the first target, which was to finish Sebring, and we did it with a podium result.
The Vantage GTE bears a close relation to Aston Martin’s road-going Vantage and is a move away from the LMP1 racing that has been part of AMR’s programme for the last few years. Here’s hoping they can emulate the success they had when racing GT cars last time out. The team’s next outing will come at the second American Le Mans Series round at Long Beach, California, on April 13/14.
To find out more about Aston Martin Racing visit www.astonmartinracing.com.