Lynn surprised by Aston Martin WEC progress with new car

Alex Lynn paid tribute to the Aston Martin team after enjoying a strong showing at Silverstone in the latest FIA World Endurance Championship round last weekend, with the team’s uplift in performance taking the Briton by surprise.

Aston Martin entered this year’s WEC with an all-new Vantage GTE car to race in the GTE-Pro class, but endured a difficult opening two races at Spa and Le Mans as it finished well off the pace of class leaders Porsche and Ford.

The team impressed at Silverstone as its cars qualified second and third respectively, Lynn teaming up with Maxime Martin in the #97 Aston Martin to finish just 0.078 seconds shy of pole, with the duo then finishing just shy of a breakthrough podium in the race on Sunday.

“It’s nice, so nice. Just in general really nice to have more pace,” Lynn told Crash.net at Silverstone.

“The team have been working so hard since Le Mans and Spa to be honest with you. It’s only the third race for the car. It’s a bit difficult to try and remember that we’re in August already, but with the way the super season works, we haven’t really had much time to race the car in anger.

“But I think we’ve found a lot of time from just understanding the car a bit more and just developing it further as we came back from Le Mans.”

Aston Martin received the biggest Balance of Performance (BoP) break in the GTE-Pro class in a bid to even the competitive order, but Lynn stressed this had offered a marginal gain compared to the team’s off-track efforts.

“I think when you look at the actual numbers of the BoP increase, it’s actually a tiny fragment. Of course it helps, but with this auto BoP and stuff, it’s difficult to actually have a massive jump,” Lynn said.

“What has been a massive jump is more just the development rate that the team has thrown at the car since Le Mans.

“The car went back to like a bare shell, and just went through every component to what could contribute to more performance, and I think that we made a big step forward.”

Asked if the step had come as a surprise, Lynn said: “To be honest, yeah. Honestly, I don’t think we would have expected that.

“But it’s testament to the work the guys have done. I can’t thank Aston Martin Racing enough, because a lot of those guys haven’t had a lot of sleep since Le Mans. I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.

“As a manufacturer, we’re making massive strides, and it’s great to be able to show that to the world as well.”