New Aston Martin Vantage GTE revealed

Aston Martin Racing has presented their new GTE car, which will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The car replaces the 9 year-old Vantage model, and the new car has a brand new concept with a 4 litre V8 turbo engine, instead of the big natural aspirated engine with the amazing rumble. That makes the Porsche GT car the only GTE without a turbo in the upcoming season.

The team also announced 5 of the 6 works drivers. Nicki Thiim, Marco Sørensen, Jonny Adam, and Darren Turner will continue for the team, while Alex Lynn is a new driver for the team. The exact combination of the line-ups haven’t been announced by AMR, but since Danish car dealer Jac Nellemann has bought one of the new Vantage GTE models, just like he did with the previous model, we should expect the Thiim/Sørensen combo to continue.

Photo: Aston Martin Racing

Another significant change for the British team is the change of tire supplier from Pirelli back to Michelin. The Italian brand was chosen before the 2016 season, leading them to the Championship for both manufacturers and drivers with Thiim/Sørensen. The 2017 season was a huge disappointment for the AMR team, and except a win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the season must be classified as a fiasco. They claimed the win in the GTE Am Championship, but were under hard pressure from especially Ferrari. The AMR Pro part of the team showed good pace at times, but could go from leading the class to being dead last in two stints. That could point towards the tires – at least the team will go back to Michelin, just like what all the other GTE teams are running.

The team has already done more than 13.000 km of testing in the new car, and among that has completed a 30-hours endurance test.

The FIA WEC season starts in April with the Prologue, before the first round in the 2018/19 season will be run during the first weekend of May at Spa Francorchamps.

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