Dunlop Praised by Aston Martin for Mexico Success

Aston Martin Racing took its first GTE-Pro win of the year

Aston Martin Racing took its first GTE-Pro win in over a year in the inaugural Six Hours of Mexico presented by ATandT on Saturday, with Darren Turner and Richie Stanaway in the No. 97 Aston Martin Vantage GTE on Dunlop

Aston Martin Racing took its first GTE-Pro win on Dunlop n the inaugural Six Hours of Mexico

Dunlop and Aston Martin Racing took their third win of the season together this weekend at the Mexico City round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) .

After wins in the GTE Am class (for 2015 spec cars and tyres) at Spa and Nurburgring, this was the first win for the partnership in the Pro class for the latest evolution of the Aston Martin Vantage GTE on 2016 Dunlop development tyres.

The victors were Darren Turner and Richie Stanaway in the #97 Aston Martin Vantage with Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen in the sister car finishing third. Between them, the pair of Vantages led every lap of the race. The results move the #95 Aston Martin to the lead in the GTE Pro Teams’ championship, Aston Martin into the lead of the Manufacturer standings for the GT Pro class and Darren Turner into the lead in the GTE Pro driver rankings.

The victory followed a perfect qualifying session where the Aston Martins, uniquely on Dunlop tyres, outpaced the field of Ford GT, Ferrari F488 GTE and Porsche 911 RSR . After this perfomance, Team Principal Paul Howarth commented, “That was an unbelievable result for the whole team and our partners. Our relationship with Dunlop has gone from strength to strength and we’ve been exceptionally pleased with how the tyres have performed"

In the other FIA WEC classes, Dunlop teams also took victories. The Mexican RGR team lost the lead in the first pit-stops, leaving fellow Dunlop teams G-Drive Racing Oreca and Signatech Alpine to take turns leading, but with 20 minutes remaining the home team regained the lead, with Ricardo Gonzales/Filipe Albuquerque/Bruno Senna and RGR winning to close the gap in the championship slightly, with the #36 Alpine still carrying the significant advantage of the double-points for their Le Mans 24 Hours win. The Rebellion team took class honours in the privateer LMP1 class.

The FIA World Endurance Championship teams now move to Texas, with the next races hosted at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin on September 17th.