Pittard Looking to Grow Beyond ‘Nürburgring Specialist’ Label

David Pittard says he aims to grow beyond the moniker of ‘Nürburgring specialist’ after signing a factory driver deal with Aston Martin, admitting that his Nordschleife expertise is an ‘ace up his sleeve’ even as he looks to gain experience in other championships.

The 31-year-old was confirmed as part of Aston Martin’s nine-man factory roster in December, having been aligned to the British manufacturer since 2022.

He first joined the brand in the FIA World Endurance Championship before moving into a role as the third driver for the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup rounds with The Heart of Racing’s GTD Pro effort last year.

Now as part of the Aston Martin factory roster, Pittard told Sportscar365 that his newly upgraded status with the British manufacturer will give him the opportunity to grow and develop into a more versatile driver.

“You can take the Nürburgring specialist, but you have to give him the opportunity elsewhere,” Pittard said.

“Because I obviously leverage my position, my experience and my performance at the Nordschleife to say, ‘You can have that, but you have to put me elsewhere in a top lineup’, because I can prove myself there as well, basically.

“If I have as much time on the Pirelli tire in an SRO championship, for example, as I have done on the Nordschleife, then I would be quicker in every SRO championship.

“It just purely takes a bit of catch up. I only started driving a GT3 car at 26 years old. If you look at Charles Weerts or some of the guys [that] are jumping out of karting or single seaters straight into GT3, I’ve been playing a bit of catch up.

“So it’s a trump card, it’s an ace up my sleeve being a Nordschleife guy, I’ve used it to open up the opportunities that I wanted and I think that should come to fruition.”

Pittard does have some experience in Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup, most notably from four starts in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and a full season racing a BMW M6 GT3 with Walkenhorst Motorsport in 2021.

The Brit went on to explain that securing a factory driver deal serves as a major career milestone, having started his journey in GT3 competition racing in VLN with Walkenhorst in 2018.

“The more I learned about the industry and motorsport in general, you work out where you need to be and you need to be with a factory team,” he said.

“You look at all the big 24-hour races over the past years, even though GT3 racing is customer racing, you see the influence the factories have on particular teams and particular lineups.

“So when you see that, that’s what you want to be a part of. You want to be part of the best team and the most competitive brand.

“So yeah, excited to be a factory driver and very thankful to Prodrive and Aston Martin Racing for the opportunity to take me on board.

“I’ve had a sample of factory racing back in 2022 and now that the program has sort of been reinvigorated with the new car it’s an amazing time to be a part of Aston Martin.”

Pittard raced machinery from various manufacturers across the 2023 season, scoring a breakthrough victory aboard the Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari 296 GT3 at the Nürburgring 24 and piloting a Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R to victory at an NLS round in July. 

He revealed that he “definitely did have discussions with other manufacturers” but ultimately went on to sign with Aston Martin.

“In the end this is what I felt was best for what I want to achieve as a sportsman in motorsport,” Pittard said.

“I sat down with decision makers at Aston Martin Racing at Le Mans and I was actually quite surprised when they came back and told me the medium to long term plans.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I really wasn’t expecting that.’ It sounds dreamy and obviously you see the reputation that Aston Martin has in endurance racing over decades of results and championships.

“I think they want to restore that again and restore the Aston Martin brand to the top level, which you could argue in GT3 they’re not at the moment.

“Their focus has been on GTE and that class, which has obviously now come to an end and the attention, the focus and the commitment and I believe the success they’ve achieved in GT1, GT2 and GTE is now going to transfer over to GT3, which obviously makes it an amazing time to be part of this brand.”