No chequered flag for the AMR-One at Paul Ricard

The new Gulf liveried and sponsored AMR-One has undergone a full race test at the opening round of the Le Mans Series at Paul Ricard this weekend. Along with two official customer teams also making their maiden race appearance; Jota and Young Driver – the weekend has been very much about knowledge accumulation.

The AMR-One has performed well for its third test, with the car completing 96 laps. The total mileage achieved today surpasses all shake-down tests achieved to date with much data and learning gained. Aside from a misfire developing, the car exceeded expectations at this early stage of development. Modifications to balance and set-up were made throughout the weekend with driver feedback improving continuously with every stint.

George Howard-Chappell said: “This weekend has provided valuable progress to our development programme. We have taken advantage of testing under race conditions with better understanding of how the car behaves in traffic and on/off the racing line.

“We have solved some inevitable teething problems, and begun to concentrate on the dynamic characteristics of the car. I must stress how early we are in the development process and we go home now to continue in preparation for Le Mans Test later this month.”

AMR-One driver Darren Turner (GB) said: “We have made some good steps forward this weekend and the car has changed significantly in each session as we are finding out more and more about the car.

“We had a good hour and half at the start of the race and then needed to check some small issues which is what today has been all about – it’s like a six hour test session. Generally the car feels really good – we’ll forge ahead with what we have learnt today.”

The Young Driver AMR Vantage GT2 in the GTE Pro class suffered a steering-pump bracket failure while it was 3rd in class and gunning for second, before having to retire from the race as a result.

After a chaotic start to the race with a multiple car accident due to confusion over a safety car on the opening straight; the Jota Vantage GT2 in the GTE Pro class was involved in a collision from a spinning competitor. The damage caused to the front quarter rendered the Jota Vantage back in the garage for a significant time at the beginning of the race. The damage to the car continued to cause issues throughout the race and as a result, the car failed to classify in the final standings.