Le Mans – Aston Martin aims for pole and podiums

Not yet rewarded for its promising performances seen since the start of the season, theAston Martin Vantage will compete in its first 24 Hours of Le Mans under official banner. Two examples are entered, one in GTE Pro for Stefan Mücke, Adrian Fernandez and Darren Turner, and the other in GTE Am (entrusted to Young Driver AMR) for Christoffer Nygaard, Allan Simonsen and Kristian Poulsen. During the test day last Sunday, both cars performed very well. For the race, all hopes are allowed. “Preparation is key for racing.Endurance and we are delighted with the session we had on Sunday, explains John Gaw, Aston Martin Racing team principal. Between the two cars, we were able to complete 115 laps without any technical issues, which allowed the drivers and engineers to have time to work on the settings of their car. We focused on making the cars easy to drive and comfortable to reduce the risk of driver errors. Although we didn't look for lap times, we were encouraged by the performance of both cars. I am confident that the best is yet to come.”

And eager to make the brand shine, Aston Martin Racing will not skimp on qualifying, and is aiming for nothing more and nothing less than… pole position. “Qualifying is not essential in a 24-hour race, but at Le Mans, being the fastest is good for prestige, so we will push hard for pole position, in both GTE Pro and GTE Am. Given the potential glimpsed this year, we expect to be serious candidates for the podium in both GTE categories on Saturday afternoon”.

Winner of the 24 and 2007 2008 Hours of Le Mans in GT1, already with Aston Martin, Darren Turner would like to add an additional line to his Le Mans record. “We know from the first two rounds of the WEC that the Vantage is a high-performance car, underlines the Briton. We have a few test sessions ahead of us and we will use them to adapt the car to the track even better than we were already able to do on the test day.". Porsche, Ferrari and Corvette had better watch out…

Discover in your AUTOhebdo magazine, on newsstands since Wednesday or available here in digital version, the analysis of the test day of the 24 Hours of Le Mans by our special correspondents in Sarthe.