Young gun Alex Gardner will be joined by experienced GT driver Ben Porter in the debut of Volante Rosso Motorsport’s Aston Martin Vantage for Round 3 of Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS at Queensland Raceway.
Gardner is a rising star of local motorsport, with the Queenslander already achieving Rookie of the Year and the overall Radical Australia Cup title for Volante Rosso as a 16-year-old last season.
Making a step up to Fanatec GT Australia in Volante Rosso’s new Aston Martin renews a rivalry he enjoyed in Radical Cup Australia last year with Elliott Schutte, who he defeated narrowly for the title.
The program returns Ben Porter to competing on local shores after racing in the inaugural Fanatec GT Australia season alongside Andrew Macpherson. Porter continues this partnership in Fanatec GT Asia where the duo have achieved reasonable success in the Am Class.
Gardner shook down the Aston Martin for the yesterday evening at Sydney Motorsport Park ahead of its debut at Queensland Raceway.
In a partnership highlighting the best of youth and experience, Volante Rosso’s Aston Martin attack heralds a new era for the team as it enters an official partnership with the brand.
The Volante Rosso Aston Martin will make its debut in Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS at Queensland Raceway as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries on August 2-4 broadcast live through Network Seven.
QUOTES
Alex Gardner
#14 Volante Rosso Aston Martin Vantage GT3
“The step is quite large from a Radical to a GT3,” said Gardner.
“It’s a big progression and jump, but the team is confident that I’ll be able to do it. It’s really exciting as well to do it at such a young age, these cars are what people strive to drive in their career and to do it so early is a great opportunity that I’m really grateful for.
“The car looks cool. It’s absolutely awesome to be able to drive an Aston Martin and I’m really thrilled to be doing so.
“As a race driver you want to go out there and win, but for me this is a big step. I just need to make sure that I jump in the car, learn everything first and take it easy, a similar approach to what I took with the Radical last year at Round 1. As myself and the team get more comfortable with the Aston Martin we’ll start pushing.
“I’ve got no real expectations from my side on results, I’m just looking forward to getting o9n track and seeing how it goes.
“I’m really looking forward to working with Ben. He’s very experienced, which is good to have alongside me and I can learn off him as well as the rest of the team.”
Ben Porter
#14 Volante Rosso Aston Martin Vantage GT3
“I’m pretty excited about the program to be honest,” said Porter.
“I’d spoken to various teams earlier in the year, but unfortunately my calendar conflicted with the Australian events.
“To get the call up to run the Aston Martin is super cool. It’s a car that has always been fast overseas where I usually run and I’m excited to get behind the wheel of it here in Australia.
“I’ve had a chance to look at an Aston Martin plenty of times. The Aston Martin appears very strong and this generation of Vantage I was running against it last year where it was a serious title contender. I think we’ve got a pretty good package.
“I’ve kept an eye on Alex through Radicals and the kid is a bit of a jet! Obviously jumping out of Radicals he’s in with the big boys now, there’s no question about that. I don’t think he’ll have a problem with his speed and he’s pretty level headed, so I think he’ll do a good job.
“Until we get in and drive it we don’t know where we stand with it, but we have a very good engineering team surrounding the car, so I don’t think it’ll take us too long to get a good set-up. I can’t see why we won’t be reasonably competitive in the Aston Martin.”