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Aston Martin Vantage GTE to Make Racing Debut at Spa-Francorchamps

The 2018/19 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season kicks off this weekend at the Spa-Francorchamps, marking the start of over a year of racing for a series of high-performance cars.
Aston Martin Vantage GTE 11 photos
Photo: Aston Martin
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Carmakers attending the sports have been presenting their line-up for this season all week long, with BMW M Motorsport making perhaps the biggest spectacle when it presented the complete lineup and BMW Werk: BMW M4 DTM, the new BMW M8 GTE, the BMW M6 GT3, the new BMW M4 GT4, the BMW M4 GTS DTM Safety Car.

Aston Martin lacks the extensive lineup of its rival and will only field one car model in the WEC, the Vantage GTE. This weekend’s race will mark the competition debut of the 4.0-litre, V8 turbocharged AMG-engined car.

According to the Brits, it took engineers ten months of development and testing on 14 different circuits and 35,000 km (21,750 miles) of track to create a racer at least as capable as the one that landed the carmaker the Le Mans 24 Hours champion title in the LMGTE Pro category last year.

Two Vantage GTE cars will get on the starting line of the race. Behind the wheel of one of them will sit three-time Le Mans winner Darren Turner, and 2016 FIA WEC GTE Pro champions Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen.

The second car will be piloted by 2017 Le Mans winner Jonny Adam, Spa 24 Hours race-winner Maxime Martin and Formula E racer Alex Lynn.

“Our revised driver line-up has also completed an intensive training programme over the winter period, including a week’s training camp in the south of France and intensive endurance tests, so they are prepared for the challenge ahead," said Aston Martin Racing Team principal Paul Howarth.

The season which kicks off this weekend marks a premiere in the endurance racing world. For the first time in history, the coveted Le Mans race will take place two times in the same season. The famous race will first take place on June 13th this year and the then again on June 12, 2019.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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