LE MANS CLASS VICTORIES

2007

Aston Martin was third in the old GT1 class in 2005 with the DBR9 that brought the marque back to the Le Mans 24 Hours that season. A year later it was second, and then in 2007 notched up a first victory in dominant style with David Brabham, Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell. The British Racing Green machines were on top throughout in a race where one of the rival Chevrolet Corvettes went out early and the other was off the pace. The eventual winners – who finished fifth overall – came out top when two offs on Sunday morning for the car shared by Johnny Herbert, Tomas Enge and Peter Kox dropped it back.

2008

The Prodrive-run AMR squad, now with its cars liveried in

Gulf Oil colours, hadn’t raced since Le Mans the previous year, but prevailed in a battle with Corvette Racing. It was nip and tuck between the DBR9 and the C6.R: the Aston was slightly faster, but the Chevy was going a lap further on a tank of fuel. Brabham and Turner, this time partnered with Antonio Garcia, triumphed by less than a lap from the ’Vette shared by Jan Magnussen,

Johnny O’connell and Ron Fellows.

2014

The Danish line-up of Nicki Thiim, David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen ended Aston’s victory drought at Le Mans aboard their factory-run Vantage GTE. They triumphed by two laps in GTE Am after taking over at the front of the field when the sister car shared by Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana and Christoffer Nygaard hit power-steering problems.

2017

The GTE Pro-winning Vantage shared by Darren Turner, Jonny Adam and Daniel Serra lost a minute to the leading group on Sunday morning. With an hour to go Adam left the pits right on the tail of race leader Jordan Taylor’s Corvette. The battle came to a head with three laps to go: Adam made an unsuccessful move at Indianapolis before Taylor went straight at the second Mulsanne chicane a lap later. At the final corner of the penultimate lap, the Aston nipped past as the Chevy’s front-left tyre started to delaminate.