Aston Martin Vantage claims first DTM victory, eyes further success at WEC and IMSA

Aston Martin's GT3 race car, the Vantage GT3, claimed the brand's first victory in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM).

Official racing partner team Comtoyou Racing secured the win at the prestigious GT3-based DTM series held at Germany's Nürburgring on July 4. The team then swept the weekend by winning the second race of the doubleheader the following day.

Aston Martin factory driver Nicki Thiim of Denmark took the brand's third and fourth all-time DTM pole positions across two qualifying sessions, then won both one-hour races in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

"It has long been a goal of mine to put the Thiim name back on the DTM winners' list, following my father Kurt Thiim's championship victory in 1992," Thiim said. "To have done it with Aston Martin and the Vantage — both names mean something very special to me."

Comtoyou Racing, a key partner of Aston Martin Racing (AMR), has built a strong track record in the GT3 era, including Aston Martin's first overall victory at the Spa 24 Hours and a GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Silver Cup title.

Aston Martin plans to carry that DTM momentum into the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The Heart of Racing (THOR) entered two Vantage GT3 cars in the WEC São Paulo 6 Hours at Interlagos in Brazil. Le Mans 24 Hours podium finishers Jonny Adam and Gray Newell competed, joined by Aston Martin Racing Driver Academy graduate Kobey Pauwels in place of Duda Barrichello, who was absent due to IMSA commitments.

YRB Racing's No. 68 Carte Blanche — a newcomer team that claimed a GTD class podium on its IMSA debut at Watkins Glen — stepped up to the GTD Pro class this weekend. Aston Martin factory driver Valentin Hasse-Clot of France, one of the drivers behind that Watkins Glen podium, was set to make his GTD Pro class debut alongside newly joined Scott Andrews of Australia.

Adam Carter, Aston Martin's head of endurance motorsport, called the DTM "an incredibly competitive stage where the world's top manufacturers go head to head," and said the first victory "is a truly special moment in the Vantage's history and a clear demonstration of the exceptional quality and performance of Aston Martin's purest sports car."

Meanwhile, the Vantage GT3 is built on the architecture of the high-performance Vantage sports car, featuring a bonded aluminum chassis and a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine.