The rounds at the Hungaroring, Red Bull Ring and Zandvoort were removed from the schedule. The series will instead make its début at the TT Circuit Assen and return to Circuit Zolder for the first time since 2002.
Aston Martin are due to enter the championship, replacing Mercedes-Benz. Aston Martin will enter a car based on the Vantage in partnership with R-Motorsport and HWA Team.
W Racing Team are due to enter the championship as a customer team, fielding two Audi RS5 DTM.
Aston Martin has nothing to do with the entry. It has said that R Motorsport can license the Vantage body shape, but that is the extent of AM's involvement.
It is not an Aston Martin entry, there won't be Aston Martin works drivers in the cars. It's not even clear if the cars will be allowed to carry the Aston Martin badge on them.
According to what I've heard, Aston Martin supports the team and obviously the cars will carry Aston Martin badge but for the marque WEC programme will remain the most important one. Nevertheless, this will be a customer team but still with a blessing from the manufacturer.
That's not the case. Aston Martin Racing has no involvement with this programme. It is purely a licensing deal for the body shape.
Note how there was no quote from Aston Martin in the press release, or how @AMR_official or @AstonMartinPR hasn't tweeted about this (or even retweeted someone else).
but for the marque WEC programme will remain the most important one. Nevertheless, this will be a customer team but still with a blessing from the manufacturer.
This is not an Aston Martin customer team.
It is an Aston Martin customer programme. Exactly, exactly the same as the GT3 programme R Motorsport currently run.
Matt was suggesting Aston Martin support it, in terms of liking the idea, I dont think he is suggesting AM are financially supporting the project in any way. They are not.
What is likely the situation, is that R Motorsport pitched the idea to AM, and based on the quality of the Blancpain programme this year from R, and the quality of the proposed partner in HWA, agreed to offer the license.
From there, they have no involvement other than happily watching the programme from the sidelines. This is actually a great approach for them, if the programme fails they say it was never really AM... If its a success, they say yep thats an Aston Martin, look at the badging.
And heck, maybe if it goes well enough they will add some extra resource to it in the future.
Actually, it is. It's required by DTM that all cars be manufacturer supported. The exact minimum amount of support is...less than clear, but it at the very least has to be enough for the badging to be on the car.
Aston Martin Racing designed and built the GT3 cars and sold them to R Motorsport.
Aston Martin is not doing anything for this DTM programme beyond selling R Motorsport a licence to use the Vantage body shape.
It’s great to see WRT get the chance to run DTM and I’ll be watching with interest but I hope it doesn’t impact too much on their Gt programme.
And the Aston Martin name.
I think it's 2 from the start of the year and then 4 eventually.
If that all comes off then it's not a bad looking grid.
One of the Astons will be for Paul di Resta. I'll tell ya, when you open up that can of dab, it's always fresh.