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Car of the Day - Aston Martin LMP1

By rodhalligan on | From car-of-the-day.com

Car of the Day - Aston Martin LMP1

Aston Martin Racing developed their new LMP1 Le Mans Series cars in conjunction with Lola. For some time there was animosity between the two companies relating to the actual naming of the car. Lola were of the opinion that the car should rightly be called Lola Aston Martin while David Richardson thought of Lola as their outsourced contractor. The 6-liter V12 from the DBR9 GT1 racer squeezed into a Lola prototype chassis. The argument on this one could go on for ever as Lola has done the development for numerous other manufacturer and passed over naming rights.

The Lola-Aston Martin LMP1 was first shown and tested at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France on the 8th March 2009. Wearing Gulf Oil orange and blue and sporting 007 & 009 numbers they looked everything a LeMans race car should. If it is not Red or British Racing Green it should be Gulf. Of course Audi would argue with that.

The 2009 Le Mans Series consisted of 5, 1000km races, at Catalunya, Spa, Algarve, the Nürburgring and the wrap up at Silverstone. And then of course there was Le Mans.

While Aston Martin was going for outright victory at Le Mans there was really never much hope against the Audi v Peugoet onslaught of diesel clockwork machinery. The Astons were the standouts of the standard fuel cars though and did fair well - results follow in part 2.

Rod Halligan