GT Life

27/10/2009 Hexis Racing AMR: 2009 FIA GT3 European Team Champions

2009 was a good year for the Hexis Racing AMR team and at Zolder they finally secured the 2009 FIA GT3 European Team title the French outfit had been striving for all season.  The nr3 Aston Martin DBRS9 of Thomas Accary and Julien Rodrigues scored three podium finishes, including victory in Round 5 at Oschersleben, and the nr4 Aston Martin of Frederic Makowiecki and Manuel Rodrigues  took two further podiums, including victory in the first event FIA GT3 night race in Adria.  The performances of the two cars added up to secure the teams title for Hexis Racing with a 28 point advantage over their nearest rivals, 2008 champions Matech GT Racing, at the end of the season.

Philippe Dumas, Team Principle Hexis Racing AMR , said: "Hexis is a private team and we work a lot with Aston Martin to develop the DBRS9, so for sure it is a perfect year.  The Team Championship is more representative for us and we are very happy to win this title.  This succes is for everyone in the team; we are only a small team with eight people, it is not a lot and everyone has worked very, very hard.  We started this year with a lot of question marks over the performance of the car and we worked a lot with Aston Martin to improve everything and we have the proof that the job is done.  we now have a very professional team to probably go up into the GT1 World Championship next year.  We will have two cars in GT3 next season to defend the title for sure and we are 80% at the moment on GT1 but we hope to be there as well.  I am very happy to be at this point today."

As well as securing the team title, 5th place in the final race of the 2009 season secured the Vice Champions position for Thomas Accary and Julien Rodrigues in the 2009 FIA GT3 European Driver's Championship.  The pair finished on 43 points, the same as Nicolas Armindo and Cesar Campanico but took the position due to the fact they had won a race while their rivals hadn't.  They also finished the season as the Aston Martin Manufacturers Cup Champions.