Bell: JMW ready for new challenge

JMW Motorsport gets set for a new challenge in 2010 with switch to Aston Martin for Le Mans Series campaign Rob Bell says he is excited by the new challenge facing JMW Motorsport for the 2010 Le Mans Series season.Having finished second in the GT2 category last season with a Ferrari 430, the team will switch to the Aston Martin Vantage for 2010 after revealing prior to Christmas that it had concluded a deal to become Aston Martin Racing's official global GT2 development partner.It will see Jim McWhirter's team tasked with both racing and developing the GT2 car during the season ahead and Bell – who will again spearhead the team's driver line-up – admitted it was a interesting challenge.“The Aston Martin is a car that has been around for a few years, but for various reasons, they are only now getting to the stage where they [Aston Martin Racing] can develop the car as they want to,” he said. “Maybe they now see this as the premier project as in previous years they have had the GT1 car and then the LMP1 project, so now they can push the GT2 machine. It's a good time to be involved and JMW will be running the car with full backing again from Dunlop – as they have in previous years.“The difference for us this season is that we will be the ones testing new parts all the time, which can be a double-edged sword. You get the parts straight away so you could be quick, but at some point, there will be something that fails as you are always pushing the envelope. It's how we manage that mentally and we have to be ready for it.”Bell admitted that the team was keeping expectations in check as it embarks on the new project, but said he was confident that JMW will have the Aston Martin in a winning position as the year goes on.“To start with, we have to bear in mind that we aren't the only ones making strides forward,” he said. “I know that Porsche, Ferrari, BMW and Spyker are doing the same amount of work as us so we need to be realistic. “We have to make sure the car works on the Dunlop tyre and move that partnership forwards and then by the middle of the season and end of the season we'd hope to be near the front and winning races to build momentum we can carry over to 2011.”