Barwell Motorsport is delighted to announce that it has secured the services of Jonny Kane and Jonny Cocker to drive its Aston Martin DBR9 in the first round of the FIA GT Championship at Zhuhai, China on March 24/25.

Kane, 33, has driven for several factory teams in both the ALMS and LMES for the past six years, including two Le Mans with the works MG LMP675 car, and claimed second place for the factory Aston Martin Racing DBR9 team at Road Atlanta in 2005. Whilst this will be Kane's first event for Barwell, former British GT Champion Cocker (20) is a stalwart of the Surrey team's Aston GT3 campaigns and is making his GT1 race debut after a very impressive testing performance in a factory car at Paul Ricard recently. Cocker had a brief run in Barwell's DBR9 in the wet at Snetterton in February but Kane will not be able to sample the Gigawave-backed car until free practice at Zhuhai.

"We are extremely excited about our line-up for Zhuhai" says Barwell's Chris Needell. "To have a driver of the calibre and experience of Jonny Kane on board is a major bonus as we step up to GT1. After Jonny Cocker's superb test run at Ricard it is also fitting that he is getting a chance to show his talents on the world GT1 stage. Plus we have already started to think of quite a few 'Two Jonnys' jokes to keep everyone amused on the flight to China.!"

At the moment the Kane/Cocker line-up is just a one-off for Zhuhai and the team is still finalising its plans for further outings in both the FIA GT Championship and Le Mans Series.