Aston Martin Racing

Aston Martin Racing is a British auto racing team established in 2004 as a partnership between automobile manufacturer Aston Martin and engineering group Prodrive. The partnership was initially created for the purpose of returning Aston Martin to sports car racing with the DBR9, a heavily modified variant of the Aston Martin DB9. Since the DBR9's racing debut in 2005, Aston Martin Racing has expanded to build a variety of cars available to customers, as well as development of Aston Martin's V12 engine for Le Mans Prototype use. Aston Martin Racing's program has earned several successes over the years. Although all cars are built by Prodrive at their factory, Aston Martin plays an integral part in designing the race cars, as well as integrating elements of the race cars back into Aston Martin's road cars. On 23 April 2009, Aston Martin chairman and Prodrive founder David Richards announced his intent to return to Formula One in with the possibility of using the Aston Martin name, however this never materialised. Aston Martin had previously raced in the 1959 and 1960 Formula One seasons but failed to score points in either year. Cars Aston Martin Racing built cars for international grand tourer classes. The team itself ran a squad of DBR9s in the former top class, GT1, while other cars were offered to customers. The GTE class (formerly GT2) became their next target after the failure of the 2011 season, and the car is based on the V8 Vantage. The V8 Vantage also featured in GT3 and GT4 classes. Before the GT3 Vantage was introduced the DBRS9 solely raced in GT3.