Aston Martin CEO Dr. Andy Palmer will be strapping himself into an Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 N430 racing car to race alongside three other fellow drivers to race at Silverstone Circuit for the Britcar 24-hour race.
It will be Palmer’s first time in racing overall competing in a 24-hour endurance race. Along with Palmer will be Marek Reichman, Chief Creative Officer, Aston Martin, Andrew Frankel (British motoring journalist) and aspiring 22-year old racer Alice Powell to race alongside at the event for Aston Martin later this month.
Dr Palmer said: “As the CEO of a sports car company with such an impressive racing heritage, I have of course been itching to get behind the wheel of one of our race cars.
“I’ve done some GT4 racing in the past but this will be my first attempt at a 24-hour event. I don’t underestimate the challenge, but the Vantage GT4 has a superb record in long distance racing and I know I’ve got a great team alongside me. I’ll obviously be careful, too, not to deliberately outshine my more qualified teammates!”
Palmer and his team’s race car will run Castrol’s livery, which is one of the brand’s technological partners with additional support from Immun’age. The partners’ support has allowed the Aston Martin team to enter not only the Dunlop Britcar 24hr race, but the ADAC Zurich Nürburgring 24 Hours as well later in the year.
Aston Martin racing star, Darren Turner will help Palmer refine his skill leading up to the race at his base Performance simulators facility in Banbury while also help in testing the GT4 race car for the race on track.
His teammates bring significant race experience to the event. Marek Reichman successfully campaigned a Vantage in the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge series in 2011 and is an experienced historic sports car racer, while well-known auto journalist Andrew Frankel has also been racing cars for more than 20 years. With an emphasis on vintage machines, he has raced at all the major historic meetings in Europe including the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, Le Mans Classic, Goodwood Revival and Spa Six Hours. He has raced modern cars throughout, too, and has so far competed in four Silverstone 24hrs races, finishing every one.
Meanwhile, Alice Powell started karting when she was eight years old and has been a motorsport fan all her life. At 22, she has already had some stand out career highlights which include becoming the first female to win the Formula Renault BARC UK Championship. She is the first and only female to score points in the GP3 Series and was crowned champion in the Formula Renault Asia Championship last year.
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