Aston Martin's Ethanol-Powered GT2 Racer

Aston Martin's return to financial stability has resulted in a return

to the

pursuit of victory on the race track. Since 2005, Aston Martin

has shown strong results in FIA GT1 sports car class with the DBR9, a

racing-spec version of the DB9 grand tourer that was engineered in

collaboration with British specialist Prodrive. Following the DBR9, was

a version of the vehicle that was deigned to run in the GT3 category

called the DBRS9. Not all of Aston Martin's developments in racing have

centered around the DB9, however, as it's just started putting its

smallest car out on the track too.

The

V8 Vantage has competed in the Nurburgring 24 Hours Endurance race with

the mostly stock N24, and Aston Martin has also created a rally-prepped

version called the Rally GT. Now the V8 Vantage will see action in

another FIA-sanctioned race category, the GT2 class. It will face off

against

Porsche and Ferrari with the all-new V8 Vantage GT2.

Besides

being a new offering for GT2, Aston Martin brings something new to the

races - biofuel. The V8 Vantage GT2 was designed to be capable of

running on E85, as well as conventional racing fuel, giving its racer

the distinct claim of being one of the few more carbon neutral racers

on the market.

Although Aston Martin has

run flex-fuel race cars before (the DBRS9, for instance was run on E85

last year) the V8 Vantage GT2 is the first designed from the start to

be a flex-fuel racer. The V8 Vantage GT2 should prove to be popular in

the ALMS circuits, which encourage the use of E85

as a race fuel.