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Aston Martin GT4 wins at Nurburgring

1st October 2013 Print
Aston Martin GT4

Aston Martin’s Nurburgring Test Centre team has won its class in the seventh round of the 2013 VLN series having qualified on pole position.
 
Running in the highly competitive SP10 category for GT4-specification cars, the #186 V8 Vantage set a qualifying time of 8:50.830 with Andy Gulden – chief instructor of Aston Martin’s Driving Academy – at the wheel. In dry and sunny conditions, he and team-mate Egon Allgäuer then drove superbly throughout the four-hour race to clinch victory by a mere 0.5 seconds from their nearest challenger to add to the Nurburgring Test Centre Team’s tally of VLN class wins.
 
Also running in SP10, the Vantage GT4 of Team Mathol Racing finished in third position, within 30 seconds of the winning Aston Martin, having also completed 26 laps of the gruelling 15.5-mile circuit.
 
In class SP8, the V12 Vantage of Marcus Mahy, Jesse Menczer and Nurburgring Test Centre Director Wolfgang Schuhbauer qualified and finished in fourth position.
 
David King, Head of Motorsport at Aston Martin, commented: “It is not by chance that the Aston Martin V8 Vantage is the most successful GT4 car in the world. The FIA GT4 class allows minimal performance modifications from standard road-going specification, so the inherent dynamic performance of the V8 Vantage comes strongly into focus.
 
“Nurburgring plays a significant role in the development of all Aston Martins and the ongoing success of our Test Centre team proves our commitment to this truly special circuit. We are also delighted to be represented so strongly by Team Mathol Racing who continue to run at the very front of the competitive SP10 field in their fourth season of racing the Vantage GT4.”
 
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in North America, the Vantage GT4 of TRG-AMR – Aston Martin’s official representative in the region – finished fourth in the final round of the 2013 Grand Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut.
 
TRG-AMR also continued with the promising development of its Vantage GT3-derived #66 machine in the Rolex Sports Car Series. With Aston Martin Racing factory driver Richie Stanaway competing alongside Damien Faulkner, the V12-powered racer finished tenth in class.
 
Multimatic Motorsports’ trio of Vantage GT4s continued to run competitively in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, qualifying in second, third and 12th positions to underline the car’s inherent performance. The team controlled the race for some time, but a late penalty for the leading #55 car dropped it out of contention, forcing the Ontario-based squad to settle for seventh and eighth at the flag.  
 
The 2013 Aston Martin GT4 Challenge of Great Britain reached its conclusion over the weekend with Andrew Jarman and Craig Dolby of Stratton Motorsport taking their second win of the year. At Norfolk’s Snetterton circuit, the pair qualified on pole position with a clear margin to the chasing pack and controlled the advantage throughout the two-hour race.
 
The seven-round 2013 GT4 Challenge of Great Britain – which took in several of the UK’s finest race tracks including Silverstone, Donington Park and Brands Hatch, as well as the legendary Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium – was the fourth consecutive year for the series.
 
Aston Martin GT4 Challenge of Great Britain organiser Jamie Wall commented: “It’s been another really successful year for the Challenge and we’ve seen some extremely competitive racing.
 
“What makes the challenge special is that a driver can join as a novice and develop into an expert, all the time having the right level of competition. We’ve seen some fantastic drivers develop in the last four years and we look forward to welcoming newcomers next year.”
 
The factory Aston Martin Racing team will continue its race-winning campaign in the FIA World Endurance Championship as the series heads to Fuji, Japan, on 20 October.

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Aston Martin GT4