Beechdean AMR aim for British GT Silver-Am success with Jessica Hawkins, Andrew Howard and new Aston Martin Vantage GT3
- Jessica Hawkins joins Andrew Howard and targets Silver-Am success
- High Wycombe team aim for eighth British GT crown with Aston Martin
- Brand-new Vantage GT3 chosen for world’s best national GT championship
Beechdean AMR will give the brand-new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 its British GT Championship debut this year with a refreshed line-up featuring Aston Martin Aramco’s Head of Racing for F1® Academy and Driver Ambassador Jessica Hawkins.
The 29-year-old from Poole will partner two-time British GT champion and Beechdean AMR Team Principal Andrew Howard as the pair target success in the GT3 Silver-Am category.
Jessica made headlines last year as she became the first female since 2018 to test a contemporary Formula 1® car in an Aston Martin at the Hungaroring.
In addition to her duties for the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team she has taken on a new role as head of its F1® Academy programme; which she will dovetail with her British GT campaign this year.
After becoming British Open Champion in go-karting, Jessica stepped up to car racing and impressively finished second in her debut race.
A stunt driver in the James Bond movie ‘No Time to Die’ and in ‘Fast and Furious Live’, Jessica more recently became the first female race winner in the TCR UK touring car championship and was a podium finisher in the W Series at the FIA Formula 1TM Miami Grand Prix.
Jessica joins Beechdean AMR Team Principal Andrew Howard – the only Am in British GT history to have won the overall title more than once – in the Vantage GT3.
Andrew, from High Wycombe, has more than 100 British GT starts to his name as well as 14 wins and 39 podium finishes across its various classes with Beechdean AMR.
In addition to the 2013 and 2015 overall British GT crowns, Andrew and Beechdean claimed the European Le Mans Series’ LMGTE crown in 2016, are previous winners of both the Silverstone 24 Hours and the Aston Martin Le Mans Festival and have been polesitters at the world’s biggest GT3-only race; the 24 Hours of Spa.
Providing the platform for the season will be the new-for-2024 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, which will feature in high-level competition across the globe including in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Built around Aston Martin’s bonded aluminium chassis and powered by its twin-turbo four-litre V8 engine, the Vantage GT3 features a new aerodynamic package, revised suspension and state-of-the-art electronics.
The British GT Championship gets underway at Oulton Park, Cheshire, on Easter Monday (April 1) with Beechdean AMR aiming to repeat the success of their last Silver-Am outing; a victory at the 2022 season finale.
Five more UK rounds plus a trip to the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium in June, featuring a mix of hour-long double-header ‘sprint’ weekends and longer endurance events of two hours or more, culminate at Brands Hatch, Kent, on September 28-29.
Jessica Hawkins said: “I’m so excited to have the opportunity to race in British GT this year with Beechdean AMR and Aston Martin. British GT is a series I’ve seen close-up while racing in other series in this paddock and it’s made me want to get involved with GT racing on a regular basis. To be able to do it with a championship-winning team like Beechdean AMR and to be able to combine it with my Aston Martin F1 role means it’s going to be a very busy season. British GT has grown in stature over the past couple of years with increased visibility and so many factory drivers in GT3 so it’s very exciting to be a part of that and we’ll certainly be targeting good results from the get-go at Oulton Park.”
Andrew Howard, Team Principal, said: “The 2024 British GT Championship looks like it’s going to be on another level even compared to last year, with both Pro-Am and Silver-Am looking ultra-competitive. We enjoyed our comeback season in 2023 so much that it reinforced my opinion that this is the best national series in the world for an Am driver like me. It’s great to bring Jessica – somebody that’s such an important part of the Aston Martin family – into the team this season. This is a programme that has the potential to grow and grow over the next couple of years as we aim first to help her learn GT racing – which she’s totally new to – and then challenge for bigger and bigger results not just in Silver-Am, but overall too. The Vantage GT3 is the newest GT3 car on the planet and in what we’ve seen of it so far is an upgrade on the old car in every area, so I’m confident we’ll have a very good piece of kit underneath us with which to challenge for Silver-Am success. It all begins here.”
