The GTE is Aston’s current works car, a
machine that sits at the top-rung of endurance racing’s road-based entries;
Aston stopped competing in the LMP1 sports prototype class after its ill-fated
2011 campaign with the open-cockpit AMR-One. That means Aston won’t be in
contention for an outright win at this year’s Le Mans – the top LMP cars are
around 10 to 15 seconds a lap faster than the top GTE cars but Darren Turner,
Adrian Fernandez and Stefan Mücke will be aiming to top the GTE class.
Vantage
GTE gets wider carbon panels, huge aero appendages, tuned4.5 liter V8 and 1195
kg dry weight
It’s still Vantage shaped, but the GTE is
transformed into something almost unrecognizable at Prodrive. Prodrive boss
David Richards is also Aston’s chairman, remember to add bulging carbon fiber
bodywork, a rear spoiler you could actually wing-walk and a V8 uprated with
race-spec cylinder heads, con-rods, valves, cams and exhaust to take on the
might of Ferrari 458s, McLaren 12Cs and Porsche 911s. Wrapped in Gulf colors, it’s
impossible not to swoon and to be ever so slightly grateful that I’ll be
sitting this one out in the passenger seat.
If the open expanses of the old DBR1 could
make an agoraphobic scream, they might want to swap with the claustrophobic in
the GTE – the cage feels even more serious than in the GT4 car, plus there’s
heat- resistant silver insulation wrapped all over the place and two big bars
bisecting the windscreen to stop flying things smashing through it. You feel
safe, but safe like wearing a bulletproof vest might make you feel safe – this
stuff’s here to make really nasty things feel slightly less nasty.
It’s Mücke who pulls the short straw and
gets to take me out for a few laps. He was a DTM – Germany’s touring car series
driver before he switched to full-time Aston driving in 2008.
Thankfully, there’s limited traffic when we
hit the track, but Mücke is straight on it, unafraid to induce pretty big under-steer
and over-steer in order to work. The tires up to temperature, constantly
assessing exactly where the limits lie by stepping all over them, stabbing at
the steering to keep us on track where I’m pretty sure I’d have cleared the
perimeter fencing by now. The GTE instantly feels far faster than the GT4, more
stable and far noisier too: the engine bellows, and Mücke’s quick little clicks
on the paddle shifts are followed by nail-gun-like violence from the gearshift
actuator that’s located behind our heads. It’s an incredibly harsh environment.
Despite the weather, we’re making massively
rapid progress, Mücke skimming the edges of those treacherous kerbs,
short-shifting to ensure he gets all the power down through the soaking wet
corners and using the instability of the car to slide it a little and get the
nose tucked into the apex whenever possible. It’s edgy, scary and hugely
impressive to watch as you switch between dangling helplessly in your harness
and being slammed back into your seat. As we come up to overtake other traffic,
there’s masses of spray to contend with; we simply accelerate into it like
we’re powering through a waterfall – how people race in these conditions I’ll
never know.
Vantage
GTE gets wider carbon panels, huge aero appendages, tuned 4.5-litre V8 and
1195kg dry weight
After a few eye-popping laps of Silverstone
we pull into the pits and the crew envelope the car. The adrenaline’s still
coursing around my body when Mücke knocks off the engine and looks over.
‘Well,’ he shrugs, ‘what can you do? It’s just so slippery. So slow!’
Aston Martin won’t be winning Le Mans next year,
but with a natural-born racer like Stefan Mücke partnered by Turner and
Fernandez at the wheel, you wouldn’t bet against them topping their class.
We’ll find out if they can fulfil that potential when June 23 2013 rolls
around. At least there won’t be any of those pesky Jaguars to contend with this
time.
Engines
Some say the soundtrack matters more
Straight Six
The engine that would define Aston’s 1960s
road cars started life in the 1957 DBR2 sports racer. Designed by Polish
engineer Tadek Marek, the 3.7-litre straight six then found a home in the
slinky new DB4 road car the following year, it’s supposed 180kW making the
Touring-designed GT good for 225kph. The lightweight DB4 GT pushed power to
225kW, while the DB5 took capacity to 4.0-litres for 210kW, or 234kW in triple Weber
Vantage tune. With development on its successor lagging, the six was given a
two-year reprieve and pressed into service in the new DBS in 1969.
V8
Aston’s plans to replace its straight six
didn’t start well – Lola tried prototype versions of the Marek-designed V8 in
its T70 in 1967, but retired early at both the Nürburgring and Le Mans. But by
1969 the new engine was ready, making its debut in the DBS, and remaining in
production, albeit with extensive mods, until 2000. Along the way it was
reworked by Corvette tuner Reeves Callaway with four-valve heads for the 1988
Virage, then received twin Eaton blowers to create the 410kW Vantage in 1993.
Most powerful of the lot was ’98’s Vantage V600 with, yes, 447kW, a pretty epic
number even 15 years on.
V12
Aston Martin Vanquish V12 engine
Ford hinted at Aston’s first V12 with the
1993 Lagonda Vignale show car, and then again with 1998’s Project Vantage, the
concept that became the Vanquish. But we had to wait until 1999 and the launch
of the DB7 Vantage for the idea to become reality. A 6.0-litre all-alloy V12,
it churned out 313kW and 542Nm of torque, rising to 343kW in the production
Vanquish. Evolutions of that V12 still power Aston’s current cars, including
the mighty 560kW One-77, though, like the old broom that’s been through three
heads and two shanks, that Cosworth-built monster shares almost no components
with the standard V12.
