Aston Martin's Gaw bullish over WEC GTE future

Aston Martin made a bold five-year commitment to the World Endurance Championship last week during the Geneva Motor Show, the manufacturer, and the Prodrive-operated Aston Martin Racing team, unlocking the opportunity to make future plans in the sport, following its championship wins in 2016.

As part of its forward thinking, Aston Martin Racing's GTE team is set to be a fully-funded factory effort for the first time. In the past Denmark's Young Driver outfit partially funded the British team's GTE program.

In light of that, AMR boss John Gaw was keen to emphasize that the future of the WEC as well as Aston Martin Racing is bright.

"Andy (Palmer, Aston Martin CEO) has done a brilliant job for the brand," Gaw told RACER. "There's so much momentum right now, and they're producing really exciting road cars that are selling out faster than they can make them. That obviously is translating through to racing too. It's great to have the stability, and it was great to see that in Geneva that Aston Martin Racing's (GTE Pro Drivers and Team Championship) winner was on the stand with the trophies.

"We've been working on the commitment with Aston for a while, but of course the success last year was helpful. It was good for the brand and it enabled them to launch the AMR road car brand off the back of it, which sells more cars."

A big part of Gaw's optimism in the WEC's value to manufacturers in the GTE class stems from the LMP1 division becoming smaller. Because of that, he feels that the GTE Pro class in particular will get more exposure during the season, and attract further manufacturers to the series.

It's a trend which he believes could lead the ACO and FIA to bring back a similar solution to the 1990s, when GT and LMP cars were balanced to race.

"As a team, we've never missed a WEC race, and we still think it's the best place to go manufacturer racing," he explained. "It's a world championship and the GTE Pro class is now a proper FIA world championship, which makes it far more valuable. It's progressing fast."

The five-year plan for the WEC all but confirms that Aston Martin will field a new racecar soon in the series, as Gaw pointed out ahead of the Vantage's sixth year as the team's GTE challenger.

"Imagine this: Should Aston Martin Racing bring a new car to the series next year, then the Ferrari 488 will be the oldest car on the grid. It feels like the new kid on the block, but there's going to be so much new.

"I think there will be more brands coming in the future, too, because GTE will get more coverage due to the balance between it and LMP1 having changed recently. I know the FIA and ACO are working on various ways to make the GTE championship even more exciting of a product for fans.

"Also," he concluded. "I'd love to see in the future LMP regulations in 2020 allow a GTP car to compete at the front using the hyper cars that are out there now. It wouldn't be a massive shock to me. Look at all the big road car brands, Aston, Ferrari, Mercedes – they all have hypercars.

"If the LMP1 numbers continue to be low, why couldn't we go back to the days like 1998 and have GTP competing alongside LMP?"