Beechdean AMR to make British GT return at Donington finale

Multiple Intelligent Money British GT Championship-winning team Beechdean AMR will make a long-awaited return to the series at the season finale at Donington Park in October.

The team from High Wycombe will field its #97 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 at the hotly-anticipated climax to the championship.

As part of a refocusing of the team’s race efforts for the end of this year and into next, it has also decided to withdraw both the #97 and #95 cars from the remaining events of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.

Beechdean AMR’s record in British GT is a stellar one. Andrew Howard won outright titles in 2013 and ’15 and shared the latter crown with Jonny Adam.

Back-to-back GT4 crowns were added in ’14 with Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings and in ’15 with Ross Gunn and Jamie Chadwick while Kelvin Fletcher and Martin Plowman took the GT4 Pro-Am crown in ’19.

The team has also won the European Le Mans Series GTE crown, taken pole position at the 24 Hours of Spa and finished third in the Le Mans Cup GT points during this time in seasons away from British GT.

A determination on the driver line-up and the class entered for Donington will be finalised at a later date. Beechdean AMR’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 will not be eligible for points due to its ‘guest entry’ status.

Andrew Howard, Team Principal, said: “We’re very excited to return to British GT at Donington. We’ve been champions in both GT3 and GT4 and have always received huge support from the home crowd with our Aston Martins racing in Britain so I’m sure we’ll have a great time. Of course it’s disappointing to end our GT World

Challenge Europe programme early, but ultimately the work commitments that kept me from driving #97 at Spa are still in play, making it impossible for me to return to the seat, as planned. It didn’t seem prudent to continue as a one-car team for the final two races, so #95 will not race at Hockenheim or Barcelona either. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everybody involved in the programme from Aston Martin, Prodrive, our commercial partners and our drivers, for the immense effort that’s gone into a season that has featured some pretty major challenges. We’re a team that’s always looking ahead and while we assess our options for 2023, it’s always good to get a head start on things. A return to British GT on a full-time basis is certainly one option we’re seriously looking at.”