News / Articles

2006 DBRS9 – British GT Winner

Simon Hawkins | Published on 11/9/2024

A surprise discovery of a championship winner Aston and the opportunity to meet with pro driver Scott Malvern

Text by Simon Hawkins. Photos courtesy of Andrew Coles, Nick Edwards, Simon Hawkins and Scott Malvern

It was a chance encounter in October this year when we discovered a lost but not forgotten racing Aston from 18 years ago.

David Lewington (AMOC Publications Chairman) and myself had been invited to Silverstone by David Richards (Prodrive) to attend a customer test session for the current Vantage GT3 Evo. This was an opportunity to view the car in detail, meet the team behind the AMR racing programme and chat with Aston legends such as Darren Turner and Jonny Adam.

Spotted further down the pitlane we noted an interesting and elegant Aston Martin DBRS9 being wheeled out of the garage. Intrigued we walked along pitlane and introduced ourselves. We were immediately welcomed by the new owner/driver Nick Jarvis and experienced pro driver Scott Malvern.

For those with a good memory this car may well be recognisable. The car has an extraordinary history claiming the GT3 British GT Championship win in its debut 2006 season. The car was driven that season by Leonid Machitski and Jonathan Cocker. The car also competed in the FIA European GT3 season that year with its best result being 4th place at Dijon in September. This car, DBRS9/2, is the second chassis of 26 DBRS9’s produced by Prodrive for Aston Martin Racing and was supplied new to Barwell Motorsport (Works Team). The DBRS9 was first introduced to bridge the gap between the GT1 specification DBR9 and the standard DB9 road car. Aston Martin Racing took the opportunity to unveil the DBRS9 on their stand within the paddock at Le Mans a few days before the 24 hour race in June 2005.

Nick had recently acquired the car and this session was the first shakedown test for the car in preparation for the Racing Legends Series at Silverstone the following weekend.

Motor Racing Legends is the name behind eight highly prestigious historic racing series: the Jaguar Classic Challenge, the Royal Automobile Club Pall Mall Cup Three-Hour races for Pre-’66 GT and Touring Cars, the Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy, the Stirling Moss Trophy, Pre ’63 GT, the Sixties Touring Car Challenge with U2TC, the Tony Dron Trophy, the Historic Touring Car Challenge and the Motor Racing Legends Pre-War Sports Car Series.

The following weekend marks a new chapter in this series with the introduction of a classic GT3 category for homologations between 2006 and 2012, whilst allowing cars to run up until their 2015 specification. In 2025 the GT3 Legends have 4 races planned across the season on a combination of national and international tracks. Details will be confirmed at a later date.

Scott explained ‘This DBRS9 is the only car in this race series that competed in the first ever GT3 category race back in 2006. In addition, Barwell Motorsport are the only team still racing and and having won this year’s 2024 GT3 British GT Title’.

A week later I caught up with Scott over the phone and hear how his career had led him to racing the Aston this year. Scott’s career started with impressive results in single seater racing and who is possibly best known for winning the 2011 British Formula Ford Championship, the 2012 Formula Renault BARC championship and twice being nominated for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award. Scott was also awarded the British Racing Drivers Club Henry Surtees Award in 2011 and the Autosport Club Driver of the Year in 2012.

Working alongside F1 teams such as McLaren and Williams at that time there was an emerging path to a possible F1 drive. As is often the case sponsorship and commercial packages fell through and those opportunities fell to others. Scott’s sportscar career started in 2014 driving in the Radical SR3 Challenge with Nick Jones and this progressed to GT4 driving a Cayman GT4 and winning the British Championship in 2018 in the Pro Am class. He was also involved in the Bentley GT3 programme and drove to an outright victory in the British GT Championship. Scott’s GT3 career continued from 2020 driving the Porsche GT3 (991 and 992 variants) and competed in the ‘Road to Le Mans’ support race at La Sarthe in 2023. ‘This was a very special moment in my career having the chance to drive at competitively at Le Mans’.

Reflecting on his current point in his career Scott explained, ’My early career gave me the skills to drive low grip and low aerodynamic cars, this coupled with my GT3 experience means that I can race across a number of different era and classes’. This was proven at the Racing Legends weekend in which Scott and Nick qualified on pole position in the Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy & Stirling Moss Trophy in a Lister Costin Chevrolet as well as finishing second 2nd in class in a Lotus Cortina in the Sixties Touring Car Challenge. Scott said ‘I am really looking forward to campaigning in the Aston DBRS9 with Nick in the 2025. There could be up to 4 Astons represented next year in the GT3 category. Test performances have shown that this car has podium winning pace despite it being in the oldest on the grid and with lower performance figures'.

Back in the pitlane Scott started the V12 engine with a sound that many Gaydon era cars will instantly recognise and the first 5 laps ran smoothly. The track conditions were declared wet and Scott described the car as ‘very good to drive with remarkable levels of linear performance and predictable handling’ characteristics that would have made this car a championship winner back in the day.

Constructed to compete in the FIA GT3 Championship, British GT and a number of international GT series events, the DBRS9 was a pure race car that was not as complicated to run as the Le Mans winning GT1 variant.

Whilst the DBRS9 was effectively based on the road going DB9, it had many features of the GT1 car. Similar chassis, carbon bodywork and suspension lay-out were a few, and the engine and drivetrain were developed by the same team of engineers. The 5.9 litre engine was an uprated version of the road car, with power varying from 500bhp to well in excess of 600bhp. However, the most significant difference from the road car was a reduction in kerb weight down to just 1280kg, a massive 480kg weight loss. This was mostly due to the extensive use of carbon composites for body panels and interior trim, as well as polycarbonate side windows. The bonded aluminium tub and aluminium roof panel was similar to the road car. At the time of introduction, it was anticipated that the DBRS9 would hit 60 mph at less than 4 seconds and 100 mph in under 9

Driving an 18 year old race car does come with its challenges and during the second shakedown Nick encounter a propshaft failure on lap 3 putting a premature end to any further testing that day. Supporting the car was a team from Venture Engineering based in Witney, Oxfordshire. Venture support the historic racing community through range of specialist services ranging from individual component production using a technology, called reverse engineering technology, and which includes scanning and recreating modern and period bodywork from original drawings or real life scans. They have even reproduced whole cars. They also carry out individual race engine rebuilds as well as provide full race track support services. Any AMOC members considering entering into the historic motorsport arena may be interested to learn more and venture would be delighted to hear from you. Scott explained’ Many of the engineers at Venture were ex–Prodrive and they would have built and maintained these cars in period. Having that racing knowledge and understanding the car’s strength and weaknesses allows us to maintain the car better in the future’

Engineers from Venture were able to replace the propshaft within a few days and allow the car to return to Silverstone for the official test day on the following Friday.

At the end of its inaugural season, the car was then sold to Australian racer John Kaias in 2007 who shipped it to Australia and went on to campaign the car in the Australian GT Series in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 Kaias competed in four races, the most notable achievement being victory in all three races at the Victorian State Circuit Racing Championship held at the Philip Island GP Circuit in September of that year.

For the 2008 season Kaias achieved podium finishes in all three races for the February meeting at the A1 GP Eastern Creek International Raceway. His success continued throughout the year with first place finishes in two of three races at the Shannons National Motor Racing Championship at the Eastern Creek International Raceway in July that year and three podium finishes in the Shannons National Motor Racing Championship Philip Island GP Circuit in August.

Chassis 2 was later sold c2010 to Australian racing team Eggleston Motorsport who campaigned the car in two Australian GT Championship events in 2011 and four races in the 2012 season, achieving 2nd place at Phillip Island in May and third place at the Australian GT Winton in June of that year. For the 2014 season the car was only entered into one race at Sandown where it achieved another podium finish.

Nothing is known about the car for the next 5 years until it was shipped back to the UK in 2019 . The car has subsequently been the subject of full cosmetic restoration returning it to the elegant championship winning ‘Barwell’ livery in which it is seen today.

The car was retuned to the track for the Friday practice session and performance and lap times looked competitive. Sadly, a scrape with a barrier wall resulted in minor damage and new parts were simply not available within the 24 hours needed for the main weekend. Again this highlights the challenges of classic motorsport. The week had proved without date that the Aston had not lost the qualities that made it a class winner in its day and it would be ready for action next year.

If you get the chance to see the DBRS9 on track next year I would strongly recommend it. The glorious sounding V12 is a joy and stems from a lost era of normally aspirated racing. Do support Nick and Scott and other Aston teams/drivers. Not only can you enjoy the sights and sounds of this car but you can also enjoy the lineage back to the road cars many of us still drive and enjoy today.

Return to Previous Page