The composition of a cockpit can hardly be more variable: A very young lady from Great Britain, an exotic driver from Oman and a VLN returner from Germany made up the driver trio in the Aston Martin Vantage V8 N24 at the VLN season highlight. The car with start number 150 of the Aston Martin Test Centre was some kind of trainee vehicle in class SP8 in which ambitious drivers may complete their ‘driving lessons’ to obtain the Nordschleife DMSB Permit grade A. Whilst the only 18 years old Jamie Chadwick and the 35 years old Ahmad Al Harthy contested already their second VLN participation in a row in the ‘learner car’ at the Rowe 6 Hour ADAC Ruhr-Pokal Race and have thus fulfilled the minimum requirements for the issue of the Permit, the 58 years old Christian Bock will make his debut in the Vantage.
She may be a newcomer at the Nordschleife, but she is definitely a well-known person for the motorsport insiders in her home country. At the age of only 17, Chadwick was the first woman and youngest starter at all to win the GT4 class in the British GT Championship, also in a Vantage V8. An outstanding career so far – and in this regard her team mate is equal to her in every way. Al Harthy’s competition driver licence shows number 001, definitely a proof that motorsport in the Oman is not the most favourite sport to exercise. He is currently competing in the Blancpain Endurance Series for the Oman Racing Team. The nevertheless so different duo finished seventh in class SP8 at the sixth VLN race.
For the six hour race, the two drivers got some support. Bonk entered the 58 years old race driver who started in a Morgan Plus8 Roadster end of the ninetieth and now changed to the higher performance class for this VLN season highlight. The trio completed 35 race laps at the 24.358 kilometres long combination of the short connection and the Nordschleife and finished in a fairly good fifth place in class SP8.
