V-AMR Update

We're nearly there...

A massive season of GT racing comes to an end this Sunday with the 2hr enduro race at our home circuit of Silverstone.
The Kinfaun VAMR and Beechdean VAMR teams come home having secured a fantastic 1-2 in the Sprint Works Championship, the Sprint Teams title and the Sprint Drivers title for Daniel Grain.

Here is Part 1 of our GT Season Review. Don't worry, it'll be prettied up with pictures and additional quotes soon!

Foundations

Virtual Aston Martin Racing was bourne out of a conversation with member of Aston Martin Racing during the British GT Championship race weekend at Silverstone late in 2012. The decision was made by Matt Hunter and Chris Siddall that a superteam of drivers and technical minds would be put together to take on the mightiest teams in TORA GT for 2013.
Following negotiations, VAMR was born on 15th December from the foundations of the ATR Dynamics team from the previous season. Technical expertise came from Close Quarters Racing (CQR) with whom Siddall had developed a strong working relationship.
The choice of the Aston Martin DBR9, to outsiders, seemed an odd choice. Indeed, many wrote off the new team's chances before testing had really begun in earnest. The team behind closed doors knew something different.

With the car chosen, team names were required and with a developing relationship with Aston Martin Racing the decision was natural to represent their British teams in the series that was founded on the concepets of the British GT Championship. With the real counterparts' blessing the public announcements were made that VAMR would be entering TORA's GT World Championship with two teams of four drivers. Cyber Racing (later Kinfaun VAMR) and Beechdean VAMR were a virtual reality!

The teams enjoyed a strong pool of drivers to choose from with successful GT and ISCC outings in 2012.
Existing drivers from ATR Dynamics stayed on including Chris Ford and Chaddy Wilson. Dan Austins chose to take a sabbatical year but would reappear shortly.
The two founding members took on team management roles within each of the squads. Chris Siddall took control of Cyber Racing and set about developing a driver line up almost unequalled in the field of 150 drivers.
Matt Hunter retained the services of Ford who had proven himself in 2012 and brought in Wilson over from the 'Dynamics' side
of the garage. The remaining seat for Beechdean VAMR was filled by Ian Maughan who had impressed for Audi in the closing stages of the 2012 GT Championship.

Over at Cyber Racing, Siddall brought in prototype master and former ATR driver, Louis Satterlee. The American's driving ability was well known to the team and hids reputation as a safe pair of hands would prove vital during the season.
From CQR came Christian Rose and Daniel Grain. Both drivers had formidible reputations for speed and technical ability but even they could not have predicted how the season would unfold.

We Race!
With both teams boasting strong driver line ups and a potientially strong technical package testing began shortly after Christmas.

The official test sessions took place at the venue that would open the new season, Sunset Peninsula. The infield circuit shares some similarities to Daytona in that part of the track is a high speed oval, countered by a twisty infield section.
Against the well prepared BMW Z4s and Mercedes SLS which benefitted from high top speeds around the oval portion the DBR9 seemed to be losing out, only regaining time on the twistier sections of the circuit. Part of the pace was put down to the new tyres required for the GT Endurance Series and this caused much head scratching amongst the drivers as the car failed to initially react how they had hoped to set up changes.
In final practice, new parts arrived for all eight cars which improved the pace significantly and improved tyre degredation.
Cyber Racing provided the biggest upset of the weekend with an astounding third place for Grain on his debut for the team. A strategy that required one less pitstop than his competition kept him in contention and a photo finish for second was the result.
Beechdean VAMR also enjoyed a strong start to the season with a brilliant 7th place for Wilson. Only technical failures for Rose and Hunter would dampen the mood in the garages. A massively positive start to the season.

Back in Europe for the opening round of the GT Sprint Series at Barcelona and both teams were hoping for more of the same.
Once again, tyres were the talking point as the team struggled to get sufficient heat on short runs and was clearly slower down the long drag into Catalunya's Turn 1.


Siddall made the observation that the Astons were likely to be 'rolling road blocks' on the main straight. While some laughed this off, the truth came in qualifying when all eight cars struggled to hook in to the circuit. A best of 6th for Grain salavaged the meeting with the next best Aston sitting in 20th place. With the cars packed and ready to be shipped to Suzuka for the Japanese double header it was hoped that this was not the start of a run of bad luck.

Fast in any Car
In the land of the rising sun, VAMR's title aspirations began to shine. The long sweeping turns played into the hands of the teams well and it wasn't long before Cyber Racing (now renamed Kinfaun Racing) lead the way. In what was becoming an Aston Martin v BMW battle for the title, Grain and Rose enjoyed their best outings so far with 3rd and 4th. Beechdean, too began to move up the order with Wilson once again leading the blue and white cars on. Hunter finally managed to get a full pair of races under his belt after only making the second turn at the season opener and failing to start in Spain. Things were looking up.


The second enduro round of the championship saw a massive step forward for the team with a maiden win for Grain after a long battle throughout the race with Round 1 rival, Takumi.
The win was the first for Aston Martin in TORA GT since NJ Carsport took a single win in August 2009. The breakthrough victory would mark a seachange in the title aspirations of Cyber Racing in particular and for Daniel Grain, a watershed moment.


Motegi also marked the start of VAMR's customer support program. A single GT4 spec Vantage was build for Duncan Ray with interest growing from other teams in the DBR9 and Vantage programmes. Indeed, soon after the race, a new DBR9 was announced for MP Motorsport to be supplied and engineered by VAMR.


The mood within the team was positive and more strong results were expected as the teams headed back to Europe for the next sprint events.

With Pride Comes a Fall
The GT teams arrived at Hockenheim anticipating a close battle at the front of the field and they weren't to be disappointed.
In BMW and Mercedes' back garden, the teams running Z4s and the mighty SLS GT3 proved to be the class of the field.
The ONR team, starting their first races in TORA GT dominated and took the top four places. Grain, now the lead driver in Cyber Racing, performed well to keep in touch with the BMWs and brought the DBR9 in 7th place. Beechdean lost some ground to West Coast during this meeting as Ian Maughan could only manage 24th place in a meeting that quickly developed into a damage limitation exersize. Valuable points were salvaged in Germany and these would prove vital towards the end of the season.


Part 2 will be released soon.