“The V8 Vantage GTE has bowed out in real style… It can be recognised as one of the greatest cars in GT racing and… a hard act to follow.” Paul Howarth, Team Principal Aston Martin Racing
Paul Dalla Lana is the first Canadian to win an FIA World Endurance Championship. “To describe the feeling of winning this championship in one word… finally!” said Dalla Lana. “I’ve seen Nicki and Marco enjoy this moment last year and Darren, Jonny and Daniel at Le Mans this year, so I can appreciate what they went through because this really is complete and total satisfaction. It’s so hard to get here, you need hundreds of people behind you but to have finally made it feels great. It’s going to have to sink in over some time but for now I just want to really enjoy this moment. Thank you so much to the team for making this championship victory a reality”.
“This is a dream come true,” said an emotional Lamy. “We’ve been trying so hard for four years now and finally we’ve won. We were so strong in the past taking so many pole positions and race wins even when we were not in the fastest car on the grid. For so many seasons we’ve missed out on that feeling of winning a championship but now we’ve got that feeling and I’m incredibly happy. I just want to say that it’s a big honour to win this championship and to do that with Aston Martin. This is the most important one for me and to take this championship alongside Mat and Paul is really special. I’ve raced with this team now for many years and I have a lot of love for this brand”.
Mathias Lauda , Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy
“It was always going to be difficult when you have to run four sets of tyres over a six-hour race,” said Darren Turner, who shares the No. 97 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE with Jonny Adam. “Once the first hour is done you don’t really know where you are because everyone is going to split their strategies to suit themselves and it is not so easy to understand the pace relative to the others. There were some good points during the race and I certainly enjoyed it but the highlight for everyone in the team this weekend is the performance by #98. Another textbook race by those guys and it’s just so nice that they have got the title and every member of the team will be celebrating hard with them tonight.”
Canadian Driver, Paul Dalla Lana
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