What is Aston Martin up to?

[SALEEN S7R]

True, but then if it does work out ok then they cant take all the credit. If the cars are actually going to be run by the Charouz team with some Aston Martin support then I feel that the Aston Martin brand might not be fully realising its potential. No disrespect to Charouz, they are a great team and do a good job but they simply dont have the level of resources that Prodrive have or the engineering expertise, if the cars were run from Prodrive's base with prodrive engineers etc then surely the cars would stand a better chance of performing well. Just my opinion.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by SALEEN S7R

True, but then if it does work out ok then they cant take all the credit. If the cars are actually going to be run by the Charouz team with some Aston Martin support then I feel that the Aston Martin brand might not be fully realising its potential. No disrespect to Charouz, they are a great team and do a good job but they simply dont have the level of resources that Prodrive have or the engineering expertise, if the cars were run from Prodrive's base with prodrive engineers etc then surely the cars would stand a better chance of performing well.

And next year, when Prodrive enter for real they can say: "Boo-hoo. We gave Charouz a ton of factory support and they are a really good team, yet they weren't able to score top results against the Diesels. So maybe, dearest ACO, you should give a few more millimeters in restrictor-size for homologated engines, as it looks like, you didn't get the equation right on the first try... sigh"

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by SALEEN S7R

True, but then if it does work out ok then they cant take all the credit. If the cars are actually going to be run by the Charouz team with some Aston Martin support then I feel that the Aston Martin brand might not be fully realising its potential. No disrespect to Charouz, they are a great team and do a good job but they simply dont have the level of resources that Prodrive have or the engineering expertise, if the cars were run from Prodrive's base with prodrive engineers etc then surely the cars would stand a better chance of performing well. Just my opinion.

I see you've got it figured out why then.

[old man]

I watched the A1 GP qualifying yesterday, must have been bored, and saw Thos Enge spinning a lot and qualifying 19 and 20 I think it was. I have to say that following his exploits last year with various Ferrari F430s, in particular when he wrote one off at Spa, I feel the choice of drivers for the Charouz effort may not show the best judgement for long distance racing

[The359]

Why? He's won the GTS/GT1 class at Le Mans in 2003, and successfully finished the race in 2004, 2006, and 2007.

[tux]

Thomas is one of the best endurance racers around in my opinion. He is a bit prone to making mistakes but arnt we all??. i feel charouz has a good line up of drivers who should push the car to the limit and can not wait to see this lola in action.

[The Badger]

Enge is the kiddy in my book . GT1 pole for how many years on the trot at Le Mans , 3 or 4 ?

Brilliant driver line up imo ..... shame they dont run 4 drivers at Le Mans , then there would also be a seat for Janis too !!!

Question ..... is it illegal to run 4 drivers at Le Mans ? There doesnt seem to ba any limit in grand-am !!! Im quite happy with 3 though .

[Bentley03]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

Interesting to note in DSC's (very revealing) interview with GH-C that Aston Martin Racing will run the Charouz Lola (unless I've misunderstood what was being implied). It sounds like a full on factory effort to me, especially bearing in mind that Team Jota will apparently only be responsible for running the '07 car.

Excellent interview with George Howard-Chappell on Endurance-Info.com. Amongst other things, confirmation that it will indeed be AMR engineers and technicians running the Charouz Lola Aston Martin in the LMS and at Le Mans.

Link

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Question ..... is it illegal to run 4 drivers at Le Mans ? There doesnt seem to ba any limit in grand-am !!! Im quite happy with 3 though .

I believe the rules say 3 drivers only at LM and GA rules say as few as 3 or as many as 5. I couldnt find it specifcally stated on the GA site but I believe SPEED had said betwen 3-5 drivers.

[FIRE]

3 drivers only at LM

[rdjones]

I see from DSC that car ran for the first time yesterday afternoon at Prodrive's proving ground in Warwickshire.

[Hammerdown]

Gosh, that was quick!

[Bentley03]

It's absolutely gorgeous!

[The Real DMN]

Nice.

[isynge]

98% of me agrees with it being a gorgeous car - and in profile there's absolutely no question, but deep down, as with all the other coupes around at the moment, there's something about the angle of the windscreen and the raised nose that somehow jars - it doesn't quite hit the line of beauty in the way it should.

Still - the way it was photographed in a late English winter sunset was extremely evocative.

[The359]

The bubble cockpit is really the only complaint from me.

[Hugewally]

More and more I dislike the raised tunnel of the F1 style nose...

[cmk]

isynge, those are astute observations. The cars look good - but there are other coupes that have looked more gorgeous. Still, I prefer this beast to the Peugeot, at least in bare carbon. It looks the business. Wonder what colour this beast will end up?

[SALEEN S7R]

Originally Posted by cmk

It looks the business. Wonder what colour this beast will end up?

British racing green would be a reasonable bet I would think.

[cmk]

I'd be happy with that (and a real one, not the lighter green of the works Astons now), but I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion. It depends strongly on where the financial backing is coming from, and from how far Aston/Prodrive want to distance themselves from this project to hedge their bets.

After all, the works GT1 cars are no longer green, after a GIO cash infusion. So we shall see whether the Charouz backers from last year impose a similar direction on this P1.

[KA]

Originally Posted by cmk

I'd be happy with that (and a real one, not the lighter green of the works Astons now), but I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion. It depends strongly on where the financial backing is coming from, and from how far Aston/Prodrive want to distance themselves from this project to hedge their bets.

After all, the works GT1 cars are no longer green, after a GIO cash infusion. So we shall see whether the Charouz backers from last year impose a similar direction on this P1.

The lighter green on the works Astons is a real BRG- just Aston Martin's version of it... A-M's interpretation of BRG was generally a much lighter shade than Jaguar's back in the 50's
http://www.classicrallies.com/img/pictures/5357_mid.jpg
If it's going to be BRG, I'd rather see it in a proper Aston green- though if Gulf were to expand the GT1 deal to cover this as well I wouldn't complain too much....

As you said, I guess it will depend on how overt Prodrive and Aston want their involvement to look at this stage, and where the sponsorship's coming from- whether the white of last year's car was dictated by the sponsors, or simply a neutral base colour chosen by the team to apply the various logos to...

[Zytek_Fan]

Originally Posted by cmk

I'd be happy with that (and a real one, not the lighter green of the works Astons now), but I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion. It depends strongly on where the financial backing is coming from, and from how far Aston/Prodrive want to distance themselves from this project to hedge their bets.

After all, the works GT1 cars are no longer green, after a GIO cash infusion. So we shall see whether the Charouz backers from last year impose a similar direction on this P1.

Skoda will probably be back as a sponsor

[AstonGeoff]

Actually the original green that Aston used in the 50's was Almond Green I believe, and the DBR9's followed on from that. It has since been known as Aston Racing Green, Proper BRG is a dark green and certainly not a metallic colour!

I guess the colour of the Lola Aston will depend on the main sponsors, personally I'd like to see it in another colour, not green. Leave that for a proper works (Prodrive) Aston next year. If I recall the first Lola Aston was black with a white stripe, that would be fine by me!

The new car almost looks great, it's just the high roofline that the regs call for that doesn't look right.

[brielga]

Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

Skoda will probably be back as a sponsor

Good chance of the Czech colors to be revisited then as well... we shall see at Paul Ricard (although last year Charouz was "dressed" in carbon there as well....)

[Justin Moran]

In keeping with the Charouz colours the AMR1 GpC car from 89 was red,white and blue! Patriotic and keeps evey one at Charouz happy too!