Aston Martin Boss Dr. Ulrich Bez (Great Britain) himself wanted to take the pride in presenting the new Vantage V8 N430 at its world debut in racing. In doing so, he shared the cockpit of the new special model, which was presented to the public this year on occasion of the Geneva Motor Show, with Wolfgang Schuhbauer (Brilon/ Germany), Director of the Aston Martin Test Centre Nürburgring, and Andreas Gülden (Reifferscheid/ Germany), chief instructor of the Aston Martin Nürburgring Driving Academy. And the new super sports car from Great Britain which was infused with racing genes during comprehensive tests at the legendary Nordschleife straightaway performed well in racing conditions. With a third place in the class of VLN Specials up to 6,200 cc cylinder capacity (SP8), the driver trio of the Aston Martin Test Centre Nürburgring finished in a podium position at this fourth round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring.
“A really great feeling”, said Bez after the race. “Our vehicles are amongst others developed at the Nürburgring Nordschleife – from race to road’. It is however every time a very special and emotional moment when you race under racing conditions with a new model at the ‘Green Hell’. And when your debut then finishes with such a good result, you can definitely speak of a very good day.” Schuhbauer added: „We have of course taken especially great care in preparing this competition. The fact that this first racing participation was then completely running without any kind of technical problem, however small, underlines the quality of our products and of our engineers who are doing their job in putting a lot of passion with heart and soul. The success finally is a very agreeable reward, even if the working days in the run-up had been quite long at times.” Gülden who, as instructor, is highly experienced was in particular very much convinced by the handling of the newcomer at the Nordschleife. “The setup was perfect right away and the N430 guarantees driving fun at a high level. It seems to be ideally suited for racing at the Nordschleife.” After this successful debut, the Vantage special edition will have its first highlight in racing in only a few weeks’ time. The British super sports car will be presented to the big public attending the 24 Hour Race at the Nürburgring from 19th to 22nd June. The car will be ready to demonstrate its reliability there. “We are really looking forward to that event”, said Bez.
A successful rehearsal with regard to the oncoming 24 Hour Race had also Aston Martin Racing. The works team with the two international sports car aces Stefan Mücke (Berlin) and Darren Turner (Great Britain) finished in eleventh overall position. “We have concentrated our efforts to the preparation of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT3 for its participation at the 24 Hour Race”, said Aston Martin Motorsport Director David King. “The result was for this reason of secondary importance and we have achieved our target to finish the race in any case and to collect valuable test kilometres. It was nevertheless good to see that we were at eye-level with our competitors over long sections.”
The second Vantage entered by the Aston Martin Test Centre finished the race in fifth place in class SP8. The car of the high-capacity V12 was driven by Egon Allgäuer (Austria), Oliver Mathai (Hannover/ Germany) and Peter Cate (Great Britain). The drivers of the fastest car driven by Aston Martin customers were Norbert Bermes (Krefeld/ Germany), Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany) and Hendrik Still (Schalkenbach/ Germany) finishing second in class GT4. This was the third podium position in the fourth race for the driver trio of the team AVIA Racing.
