Aston Martin Vantage DTM Car Breaks Cover

R-Motorsport’s new Aston Martin DTM challenger has completed its first rollout ahead of its approaching debut in the German race series.

2010 DTM champion Paul di Resta took the Aston Martin Vantage DTM on its first track outing at Jerez in Spain ahead of this week’s multi-manufacturer test.

The car has been developed by a new entity called Vynamic, which is a partnership between former Mercedes entrant HWA and R-Motorsport’s racing brand AF Racing.

Di Resta, who is driving the Aston Martin this year with Daniel Juncadella, Ferdinand Habsburg and Jake Dennis, gave a positive first impression of the new car.

Its rollout comes on the eve of official DTM testing, which will see all three manufacturers take to the track at Jerez on March 5-6.

“The car felt good right from the start,” he said.

“The team has done an incredibly good job of bringing such a beautiful and highly driveable racing car onto the track in such a short time.

“Right from the roll-out, everything was working perfectly, and I immediately had a good feeling in the car. I’m now looking forward to it to the first test session tomorrow.”

R-Motorsport reports that the Vantage DTM is 27 cm (10 inches) shorter than the road-going car of the same name and features a four-cylinder turbocharged engine.

The team launched the program last month but only with a sculpture rendering of what the car might look like, while it reported that the development process took just 90 days.

“The technical team has done a terrific job,” said team principal Florian Kamelger.

“Getting the Aston Martin Vantage DTM car track ready in well under 100 days has to be a DTM record.

“The car is an absolute stunner to look at, and the first impressions registered by Paul are promising.

“Although we still have a lot of work ahead of us before the season opener at Hockenheim, we can feel confident that we’ve got the basics of the car right.”

Di Resta will share driving duties with Jake Dennis on day one of DTM testing, while Dennis and Habsburg are slated to drive on Wednesday.

R-Motorsport holds the official license to run cars under the Aston Martin banner, with the British marque filling the void left by Mercedes to compete against BMW and Audi in 2019.