Beechdean AMR, stalwarts of the British GT Championship for more than a decade, has announced it will sit out the 2017 season in both the GT3 and GT4 class.
Multiple title winners in both classes since their first season in 2006, the Aston Martin crew – who most recently won class titles in 2015 when team boss Andrew Howard teamed with Jonny Adam to win in GT3 and Jamie Chadwick & Ross Gunn took victory in the GT4 class.
Last year the team were in the GT4 title fight all the way to the end with Jack Bartholomew partnered by both Jordan Albert and Ross Gunn over the course of the season, losing out at the last round of the year at Donington Park. In GT3, Gunn made his mark on the class with Howard but couldn’t quite match the results of previous years.
Their departure from Britain’s top GT series came as quite a surprise, but Howard told Autosport that the decision to move on came from the inability to confirm driver line-ups for 2017. In addition, the team announced a return to the European Le Mans Series and the Le Mans 24 Hours with Howard, Ross Gunn and Darren Turner in a 2016-spec Aston Martin Vantage GTE.
Beechdean will also be entering selected SRO-run events with the Brands Hatch round of the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup and the Spa 24 Hours – in the Pro-Am class – two events the team is targeting.
Howard said: “British GT is one of the best Pro-am championships in Europe, and we look forward to returning in the near future.”
