The final part to DSC’s 2019 WEC 4 Hours of Silverstone preview covers the record 11-car GTE Am class. If you’ve missed any of the previous previews, you can catch up with the links below.
So, GTE AM. Of the 11 cars, there are three marques once again represented; Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin.
The brand with the most cars is Porsche, with five.
Two of those are from reigning Le Mans winner and class champion Team Project 1. The German team is back with an expanded programme taking in two 911 RSRs, with the aim of defending its championship win from the ‘Super Season’. Its title-winning trio of Patrick Lindsey, Jorg Bergmeister and Egido Perfetti has been split up, with Perfetti the only one back in the WEC this season.
He will race the #56 Porsche with GTE-returnee David Heinemeier Hansson and rapid Porsche young professional Matteo Cairoli. The other car sees the Keating Motorsports Le Mans trio of Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Felipe Fraga team up once again, racing for the team that eventually won GTE Am at Le Mans after their Ford was disqualified post-race.
After a sensational debut WEC season, the outfit’s efforts to repeat its successes will be a storyline to follow this year.
Elsewhere in the Porsche camp, Dempsey Proton Racing also brings a pair of 911 RSRs to the class. Christian Ried’s team will hope to return to winning ways this season and avoid any post-race penalties, which scuppered their chances of winning the title last year.
After a potential title-winning run suffered a self-imposed blast to both feet, the team losing all its points mid-season, Christian Ried’s crew will hope to win races without any dramas. In the #77, Ried himself, the only remaining ever-present WEC driver since the first season in 2012, will return to race with Matt Campbell and Riccardo Pera, who he won the second WEC race at Spa last season with.
The sister car will run with the last-minute signees Gianluca Giraudi, former Nissan GT Academy winner Ricardo Sanchez and Thomas Preining, who moves over from Gulf Racing.
Speaking of Gulf Racing, it is back with its 911 RSR for team owner Mike Wainwright, regular ace Ben Barker and Andrew Watson, a former McLaren academy driver who won a ‘shootout’ with Nico Bastian back at the FIA WEC Prologue. If Wainwright can continue to improve and run mistake-free this season, then podium finishes should be in prospect, as his supporting cast are highly-experienced and the crew behind the scenes always prep the car to the highest of standards.
Four of the remaining six cars are Ferrari 488 GTE EVOs, for what will be the first season of the EVO-spec model in GTE Am following its debut in the WEC last term in Pro with AF Corse.
Two of the four 488s are from AF Corse, with the #54 of Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Giancarlo Fisichella no longer a Spirit of Race entry. Little has changed though, as AF Corse ran the Spirit of Race-bannered effort last year. The aforementioned trio will look to build on a strong ‘Super Season’ in which they managed to finish on the podium twice, and recapture their winning form from the 2017 season where Flohr won his first WEC race at Fuji, when Miguel Molina was racing in Fisichella’s seat.
The second AF Corse entry sees former class champions Francois Perrodo and Manu Collard team up with Nicklas Nielsen. After two seasons spent in LMP2, Perrodo has made the decision to step back into a GTE car, where he hopes to find winning form once again with his long-time mentor Collard, who will make his 24th Le Mans start (in 25 years!) later in the season.
The remaining Ferraris are from MR Racing and Red River Sport. MR Racing is a returning team, with Motoaki Ishikawa and Olivier Beretta pairing up once again. The duo is joined by Kei Cozzolino, who is still relatively fresh from his Asian Le Mans title over the winter, and a maiden Le Mans start with CarGuy Racing. Fighting for podiums and wins for this year will be tough, but taking a strong haul of points is certainly possible should be the goal here.
Red River Sport will have similar aspirations in its first year in the WEC. Johnny Mowlem’s team, which will be run by AF Corse, brings Bon Grimes onto the world stage for the first time, along with Charlie Hollings, another WEC debutant. This effort is centred around Grimes’ development, which Mowlem has been a part of from the very beginning. He’s won plenty of races on his journey to the WEC in various bits of machinery, and now is the time for him to match himself against a set of other equally aspirant gentlemen drivers.
Finally, we have two Aston Martin Vantage AMRs on the list, from TF Sport and Paul Dalla Lana’s Aston Martin Racing effort. With both teams making the upgrade to the current generation Vantage for this year, both cars should be in the mix for wins and the title.
At TF Sport, Salih Yoluc, who had a strong debut season in 2018/19 should be amongst the fastest Bronze drivers in the field at every race. He’ll be joined by Charlie Eastwood once again, who played a big part in the British team’s podium finishes last season, and AMR factory driver Jonny Adam, who is one of the most accomplished pro drivers in the class.
The biggest goal – at this point – for Tom Ferrier’s team will be to get a first WEC class win after finishing second four times last season. Beyond that, fighting for the title is a realistic aspiration. Once Eastwood and Yoluc get up to speed in the new Vantage the sky is the limit.
It’s a similar story for the #98 Vantage, which sees Paul Dalla Lana return to the WEC for another full season, but with new teammates after five seasons spent driving with Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda. The Canadian’s supporting cast is now made up of long-standing, highly-successful Aston Martin factory driver Darren Turner, and former British GT4 champion Ross Gunn, who will be eager to impress in his first full WEC campaign.
This is a big change for Dalla Lana, who is searching for a second GTE Am title and a first Le Mans win this season. He’ll be hoping that the new Vantage, which in theory should be easier to drive and extract pace from than the outgoing model, and his new teammates will help him achieve both targets.
