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Friday, 18th April 2008

Aston Martin squad hopeful of solid start to title campaign at Silverstone.

Jetalliance Racing will hope for a solid start to its FIA GT Championship campaign this weekend at Silverstone as the new season kicks off with the annual Tourist Trophy event.

Having finished second last season, Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp will hope to go one better this time around at the wheel of the Aston Martin DBR9, despite the increased strength of the grid going into the opening round of the campaign on British soil.

"I'm convinced that at least eight teams are on the same level this year," former F1 racer Wendlinger said. "The variety of makes is very large, the drivers are strong and experienced. Our advantage is that we are much further in our present state of knowledge concerning the car than we were the year before.

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"All those test sessions we completed were incredibly important for this, because we were able to experiment a lot with regard to setup, making good progress. That's why I'm convinced that we're well-prepared for the first race weekend. But it's obvious that there's no way that success will be a matter of course this season."

Team owner Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer will continue to run in the sister car, although with a new partner in the shape of Alex Muller.

Like Wendlinger, Lichtner-Hoyer said he was confident for the season ahead with his personal focus being on trying to secure at least one podium finish as the campaign progresses.

"Just like Karl I'm very positive going into the new season," he said. "The team has done a very good job preparing for the season. My ideal would be to have both cars finish in the points consistently in order to be able to have some say in the teams championship as well. For me personally, it would be a dream to be on the podium at least once."

The team will also run four Aston Martin N24s in the GT3 European Cup this year.

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