The
Aston-Martin AMR-1 raced during the heyday of Group C racing,
introduced
during the 1989 World Championship season. The AMR1's best
finish in it's inaugural season was a fourth place at Brands Hatch. The team placed sixth in
the
Team's Championship, this having skipped the first two rounds, behind Team Sauber Mercedes, Joest Racing, Brun
Motorsport,
and the Silk Cut Jaguars of TWR.By any measure Aston's 1989 season was a success. The car showed early on reliability, intermingled with the expected season-one issues, and ended up finishing 6th in the World Championship. And while it lacked somewhat in speed, it was felt to have good downforce and balance and that most of the performance issues resolved to a car with perhaps slightly too much drag. Engine power was good and fuel economy didn't seem a problem (though that's somewhat at odds with the perceived drag issue). Regardless, the follow on for 1990 Aston Martin AMR-2 would address that issue.
However, soon after the end of the 1989 season the program was canceled, though that more to do with internal Aston-Ford politics than any perceived performance deficit. The reality was that with Ford's 1990 acquisition of Jaguar, the Aston racing effort suddenly found itself without 3.5 liter engines (Ford) for 1991. And we all know where those engines ended up. So without the promised engines for 1991, and thus facing the sudden budget increases necessary to develop bespoke engines for the upcoming 3.5 liter series (not to mention sibling brands competing against one another), the decision was simply made to cut their losses and thus the AMR-2 development was stopped, and Tony Southgate, newly joined to begin development of the AMR-3 for 1991, headed to Toyota almost as soon as he had signed up to Aston.
