Aston Martin will switch to Dunlop tyres for its GTE assault on this year’s World Endurance Championship at the same time as ending its long-standing relationship with Gulf Oil.
The Prodrive-run Aston Martin Racing squad has made the decision to switch from long-time tyre supplier Michelin to Dunlop after testing on the rival rubber over the winter.
It tried the Dunlops for the first time straight after last November’s WEC finale in Bahrain and confirmed a deal after a further test at Paul Ricard last week.
The arrangement for AMR’s trio of Vantage GTEs – two in Pro and one in Am – to race on Dunlops goes hand in hand with a link-up for an assault on the Nurburgring 24 Hours in May with a pair of V12 Vantages.
AMR’s links with Gulf, which date back to 2008, have been severed after forging a new lubricant partnership with Total.
Its attack on the GTE Pro class has also been downscaled from three to two cars in 2016.
Team stalwart Darren Turner will move across to the AMR Young Driver-backed #95 car to share with Danes Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen.
Richie Stanaway and Fernando Rees drive the second #97 car together with Jonny Adam.
AMR will run a solo 2015-spec Vantage in GTE AM for last year’s runners-up, Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana an Mathias Lauda.
The Nurburgring driving roster will be made up of the two WEC crews, with Lamy joining Turner, Thiim and Sorensen and Lauda lining up with Stanaway, Rees and Adam.
