R-Motorosport's Aston Martin Vantage DTM car made its track debut at the Jerez circuit in Spain on Monday, ahead of the first round of the new DTM season which starts in early-May.
Aston Martin joins the German touring car series for the first time alongside Audi and BMW and will take part in a joint test this week, which begins on Tuesday.
Monday saw the first track run of the R-Motorsport operated Aston Martin Vantage DTM with driver Paul di Resta behind the wheel.
"The car felt good right from the start," said di Resta. "The team has done an incredibly good job bringing such a beautiful and excellently wheeled racing car to the track in such a short time. At the roll-out everything worked perfectly and I immediately had a good feeling in the car. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's first day of testing."
The Aston Martin Vantage DTM development project was developed and implemented under the operational management of Vynamic GmbH, the joint venture of AF Racing AG and HWA AG, in Affalterbach.
In accordance with the requirements of the DTM regulations, the car had to be adjusted in terms of length, width and height compared to the dimensions of the production vehicle. The Aston Martin Vantage DTM is thus 4730 mm long, 1950 mm wide and 1280 mm in height.
"The technical team has done a terrific job," added team principal Florian Kamelger. "It is a DTM record that the Aston Martin Vantage was launched in less than 100 days. The vehicle is visually an eye-catcher, a particularly beautiful DTM car.
"The first driving impressions of Paul are promising. However, we still have a lot of work ahead of us until the start of the season at Hockenheim, which we are now starting to realize that the basis of the car is already right."
Di Resta will start the official test program on Tuesday and Wednesday before Jake Dennis on Thursday and Ferdinand von Habsburg on Friday.
