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American LeMans
LE MANS: AMR Confirms Long-Term Prototype Plans
Aston Martin Racing to develop self-built prototype for 2011, three-year plan nearly in place.
SPEED Staff  |  Posted September 17, 2009   Banbury (UK)
Stefan Mucke, Jan Charouz and Tomas Enge in the No. 007 Lola-Aston Martin claimed top honors in the Le Mans Series, winning on two occasions. The trio also recorded a third place finish at 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. (LAT)
Just days after claiming the Le Mans Series LMP1 championship, Aston Martin Racing has revealed work is already underway for the manufacturer’s first self-built prototype, aimed for 2011 debut.

Aston Martin Chairman David Richards confirmed last weekend that AMR had pushed the button on the much talked about project. Work started in earnest during the summer on a successor to this year’s reworked Lola coupe, which competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the LMS.

“We have had our design team working on it for two months,” Richards explained. “Most of the initial CFD work has already been done. We have brought good design people onboard and we have partnership with Formula 1 teams.”

Aston Martin will develop its own engine to replace the six-litre V12 that powered its coupes this season. With 2011 LMP1 rules calling for smaller engines, similar to what's seen in LMP2 today, AMR’s most logical choice would be based around 3.4-liter normally aspirated V8, gasoline-powered engine.

Richards is also in the process of putting a three-year plan together for AMR’s motorsports activities. And with financing already in place thanks to sponsorship agreements, the British manufacturer appears to laying a solid foundation for the future.

“We have made no secret of the fact that we want to build a complete car ourselves, but we want to do it properly so we need a proper plan,” Richards said. “That’s one of the reasons why we are looking at 2011.”

AMR had looked at building its own car for next season, but with only minor changes to the engine regulations, the organization found it better to focus on 2011, when gasoline and diesel-powered engines are expected to be on a more even playing ground.

“We are far enough down the line with the design that we could have done it for this year if the petrol/diesel equivalence had been sensible. Clearly this is not the case,” said AMR Team Principal George Howard-Chappell.

AMR’s 2010 plans are up in the air at the moment, but Richards said the best case scenario would be to sell its fleet of Lola-Aston Martins to customers and fully focus on development of the all-new car. Its No. 008 chassis, which ran at Le Mans and the LMS Nurburgring and Silverstone rounds, is already up for sale, listed at $1.2 million Euros ($1.75 million USD) on various automotive classified Web sites.

“We would like to see them in private hands, which would allow us to get on with developing our own 2011 car,” Richards said. “There is a lot of interest from people wanting to race our cars.”
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