Aston Martin Racing is really gearing up for the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship season.
When the 2019/20 season starts at Silverstone in just over two weeks’ time, they will field the probably strongest line-up in many years.
The two GTE Pro cars will still be driven by Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen in #95, while Maxime Martin og Alexander Lynn will share #97. Those were the four drivers who secured two victories for the AMR team in the 2018/19 season, and they were key elements in developing the latest generation Vantage for the GTE category.
The team also runs #98 in the GTE Am category, where Paul Dalla Lana has been the fixed member since 2014. He will however say goodbye to Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda, who he has been paired up with since 2015. They will be replaced by the two works drivers Darren Turner and Ross Gunn. You should never underestimate Pedro Lamy, but Gunn instead of Lauda is a huge speed upgrade.
The changes in #98 is surely down to the added competition in GTE Am, where especially the Dempsey-Proton Racing team has been very good at placing some super fast junior drivers (read Silver ranked drivers) from Porsche, next to some super fast Gold or Platinum drivers. AMR #98 was comprehensively beaten by them on several occasions, but their aim is to change that now.
There didn’t appear to be any bad blood between AMR, Lamy and Lauda, since both drivers were present at the Prologue in Barcelona last month, with them driving 58 and 40 laps respectively, in the car.
The third drivers on #95 and #97 are still unknown, for the 24 Hours of Le Mans next summer. Turner has been in #95 quite a few times, while Jonny Adam – now a full time driver for the GTE Am team TF Sport #90 – has been in #97. Ross Gunn was the next candidate to fill a seat, but he will be busy as well.
Aston Martin Racing do have a junior programme, where they are trying to develop young talents, including young Dane Patrick Matthiesen, as well as young female racer Jamie Chadwick, who recently won the W-Series Championship. Those two could be potential candidates for June 2020, but it’s still too early to guess about.
The FIA World Endurance Championship 2019/20 starts on 1 September at Silverstone in Great Britain.