This weekend will see Andrew Watson contest the opening round of this year’s Blancpain GT Series as he heads to the iconic Autodromo Nazionale di Monza for the opening three-hour Endurance Cup race of the season with his Garage 59 squad.
After rejoining the Garage 59 team, following the teams switch to the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for this season’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup and the remaining Intercontinental GT Challenge races, the Aston Martin Racing Junior will be hoping to get his year off to a strong start in his new machinery.
Having also been recently announced that Andrew was signing for Aston Martin Racing, to become one of the brand’s AMR Juniors, this weekends racing in Italy will be Andrew’s first race flying the flag as one of the AMR Juniors.
With the team entering into the PRO class, Andrew will team up in the #59 Aston Martin with AMR works driver and 2017 Le Mans winner Jonny Adam, and with former Blancpain Endurance Cup winner Côme Ledogar. The strong team will be hoping to replicate the success of Garage 59’s 2016 Blancpain Endurance Cup PRO championship victory.
The legendary Italian venue will see drivers compete around the iconic 5.793km track, consisting of long straights and chicanes, where drivers can be expected to reach speeds of over 285kmh, in what is set to be a thrilling season opener at the ‘Temple of Speed’.
Looking ahead to the opening race of the Blancpain GT season, Andrew is excited to get back behind the wheel.
“I’m really looking forward to the weekend, Monza is always a great circuit and one of the highlights of the year. It will also be the first time I’ll be racing officially as an AMR Junior, which will be an incredibly proud moment for me.”
“The team at Garage 59 have done a fantastic job with the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and it will be interesting to see how we stacked up against the competition. The testing that we’ve done has been really positive and we’ve got a strong team for this season, so hopefully, we can be challenging at the front this weekend.”
The three-hour race gets underway on Sunday (14 April) at 14:00 BST with Qualifying taking place on Saturday at 08:40 BST. Both the race and the qualifying session will be streamed LIVE at https://www.blancpain-gt-series.com