Alongside the new Aston Martin Vantage road car comes the release of the new Aston Martin Vantage GTE. Understandably, Aston Martin are keen to prove the new Vantage on the race track. Having enjoyed big success in the GTE class in recent years with 37 race victories and two 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, the new Vantage GTE will get stuck in straight away.
Much like Ford did with the GT, Aston Martin have developed the new Vantage GTE alongside the road car. It has already completed 13,000km of testing, including two 30-hour tests at the Spanish circuit of Navarra and on Sebring in Florida.
The base for the new racer is the Mercedes-AMG 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 engine. It has been developed from the stock unit by Aston Martin Racing and is specific to the Vantage GTE. Alcon provide the braking system, Öhlins the suspension and Michelin a bespoke tyre compound.
The design is ultra-aggressive, as you would expect for any Aston Martin race car. It features a deep front splitter with new bonnet vents and a set of side exhausts. The rear is dominated by the combination of rear spoiler and an enormous protruding rear diffuser.
Aston Martin Racing has retained its driver line-up with this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans GTE Pro class winners Darren Turner and Jonny Adam. 2016 FIA WEC GTE Pro world champions, Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen also remain. Ex-GP2 race winner and now Formula E racer Alex Lynn has now joined the team and further driver announcements will come soon.
Aston Martin Racing Technical Director, Dan Sayers said of the 2018 Vantage GTE: “Designing and developing this new car has been an extremely satisfying process. We’ve collaborated closely with Aston Martin’s Gaydon headquarters to develop the road and race cars in parallel. Attention to detail has been a priority at every step of this process and we’ve made big improvements in each area of the car. We’ve spent every second optimising the design right until the build of our test car, which has paid dividends during our current testing schedule. This project has been one of the most intensive but also rewarding of my career so far”.
