Costas Los, driver of the AMR1, adds his thoughts, "The Aston had an amazingly torquey engine. It was very well screwed together; it finished its first 24 hour race without a shakedown so to speak, and according to Richard Williams, the gearbox was good enough to stay in the car after Mike Roe, Brian Redman, and myself had finished with it.  I can't comment too much on handling characteristics because we were sent out to finish the 24 hours and not to race (contrary to car 19), so I took it quite easy in that race.  When I shook down the first AMR1 at an airfield in April, I was asked to drive down a long straight, break, turn round and drive back. I had to do this repeatedly for a while, and at one point half way down the straight in top gear, the car took off as if someone had just switched on some sort of after-burner.  When I got to the end of the runway, almost failing to stop in time, I turned round and found the entire rear body had come off. When I got to the pits, I suggested we run without the back cover, the car was so much quicker in a straight line.  The rear wing was attached directly to the gearbox so the characteristic out of control manoeuvre which often comes with a sudden aerodynamic imbalance didn't occur."