Aston Martin celebrated their centenary with a strong top-ten finish for the Bilstein-liveried V12 Vantage GT3 at the Nurburgring 24 Hours.
The weekend began well for the Aston Martin squad, as Pedro Lamy took the V12 Vantage to the front row of the grid with a time of 8:18.362, just 1.1 seconds off pole position.
Lamy took the overall lead of the race in the second hour, with team-mates Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke also leading in their respective stints before rain and fog brought the red flag out at 10:30pm.
The race was restarted some nine and a half hours later, with rain still creating tricky conditions as the Aston Martin drivers struggled to find grip, losing ground to their closest rivals. A brush with the barrier soon after the restart affected the car’s handling for the remainder of the race, forcing the team to settle for a safe finish, eventually crossing the finish line in tenth position overall.
“Our car performed perfectly on the Michelin slicks,” said Team Manager John Gaw. “In the dry, we recorded some of the very fastest lap times of the race. In the wet we struggled with grip, but this is something we will work on together ahead of next year’s race.”
“Overall this top 10 result is great,” added Turner. “We had front-running pace in the dry, proved by the fact we led most of the first half. We need to go away now and work out how to make the most of the wet tyres but I think we can all be very pleased with our performance this weekend.”
Away from the racing, Aston Martin’s centenary celebrations were highlighted by a parade of over 100 cars on the 25km circuit, lead out by CEO Dr Ulrich Bez in the CC100 Speedster Concept and Sir Stirling Moss in the 1959 1000km of Nurburgring winning DBR1.
