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Autosport
Autosport
Sport
Gary Watkins

Le Mans GTE Pro class winner Maxime Martin to leave Aston Martin

The British manufacturer has announced that it will part company with the 36-year-old Belgian after five seasons, which included GTE Pro victory at the 2020 Le Mans driving an Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared with Alex Lynn and Harry Tincknell.

Martin followed up on the announcement on Monday afternoon via his Instagram account, but did not reveal where he will be racing in 2023.

“For me it's time to move on, aiming for the start of a new and exciting chapter in my career,” he said.

“After an incredible five-year journey, it's time to say goodbye to the Aston Martin Racing family.

“With AMR I achieved one of the greatest results of my entire career: winning the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours was simply incredible, and I will never forget the sweet taste of that wonderful victory.”

AMR head of partner racing Huw Tasker thanked Martin for “the huge contribution he has made to the Vantage programme”, pointing out that he played an “integral part” in the development of the second-generation Vantage in both its GTE and GT3 iterations.

Martin joined Aston after a five-year stint at BMW, which included four seasons in the DTM and victory at the Spa 24 Hours in 2016.

Maxime Martin won the 2020 GTE Pro class at the Le Mans 24 Hours alongside Harry Tincknell and Alex Lynn (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

He contested the 2018-19 and 2019-20 World Endurance Championship seasons in GTE Pro with the Prodrive-run AMR team, finishing runner-up in the points in the second of those campaigns together with full-season partner Lynn.

He raced sporadically with Aston in 2021 after the marque withdrew from GTE Pro and this year his main programme is racing a Vantage GT3 in the IMSA SportsCar Championship in GT Daytona with the Heart of Racing customer team.

The campaign has yielded a pair of class victories at Watkins Glen and Mosport ahead of this weekend’s Petit Le Mans seasonal finale at Road Atlanta.

Roman De Angelis, his team-mate in six of the nine races so far, leads the GTD points going into the 10-hour race.

Martin also raced in this year's eTouring Car World Cup with with the Romeo Ferrari Alfa Romeo team.

He is part of a six-driver factory roster at AMR this year together with Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorensen, Ross Gunn, Charlie Eastwood and Jonny Adam.

De Angelis and Tom Canning are also contracted to AMR as junior drivers.

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