The second round of the IMSA Weather Sportscar Championship will be soon upon us next weekend as the whole grid swap the Daytona International Speedway for that of the Sebring International Raceway for another elongated endurance race.

With a twenty-four-hour race already under their belts, the combined class entries of forty-five cars will compete at the 12 Hours of Sebring around the infamous bumps of the former wartime airfield-based circuit.

 

Unlike the opening round to the season at the Rolex 24, this around we will not be seeing the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 but will be having back the two full season entries from the Heart of Racing team plus the Van Der Steur AMR as contestants within the Endurance Cup.

The #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie of Ross Gunn, Roman de Angelis and Alex Riberas will certainly be hoping for better fortune this time around after technical issues during the Rolex 24 put them many laps down to their peers but for Sebring, the Valkyrie does benefit from the greatest advances from IMSA’s latest round of balance of performance changes.

 

 

Whilst the #19 Van Der Steur AMR GTD of Rory Van Der Steur, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Sebastian Baud (with Carl Bennett) suffered at the end of the Rolex with a lowly track position at the end despite their encouraging run through the middle of the fog affected race (P11 in class), the #27 HoRT AMR GTD of Mattia Drudi, Eduardo Barchello, Zacharie Robichon (with Tom Gamble) completed the Daytona GTD podium behind that of the Magnus Racing team as they completed the opening round to the season P2 and P3 in class.

Obviously, all will be looking to either improve or replicate those class finishes at Sebring as the ultra-competitive nature of the topflight GTP class (for the #23) and the GTD class for all the AMR Vantage runners do not allow to too much of a points deficit before championship aspirations are soon compromised.

 

 

Track action will begin on Thursday morning with the first Free Practice session before moving onto Qualifying on Friday with the start to the 12-Hours of Sebring starting at 10:10 hrs local on Saturday morning.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

 

 

 

The opening round to the 2026 24H Series European Series highlights another healthy thirty strong mixed class grid ahead of next weekend’s twelve-hour opener from Mugello, Italy.

Running again as part of another five-event series, this season will again take us through Italy to Belgium, to France, then Germany before rounding off their year in Spain in mid-September.

 

 

Like last year, it appears that the Spanish based E2P Racing team will again be the sole Aston Martin Racing powered runner (for the season at least) as they look to take their race programme forward with their Vantage GT3 Evo had had something of a problematic start to their AMR powered partnership last year.

Drivers Pablo Burguera, Antonio Sainero and Oliver Campus return to the fold with the addition of fourth man Javier Morcillo at selected rounds as they again compete within the GT3 class having already encountered racing this year together at the GT Winter Series arranged 6Hours of Portimao.

 

It appears that misfortune may have befallen the #247 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Racing entry at this weekend’s final round of the GT Winter Series as the car failed to take the start to yesterday’s race.

Looking at the timing results, the Jan Jaap Von Roon and Tom Coronel driven car completed all the preceding’s track sessions up until Qualifying on Saturday where the race commentary team said that the car then aquaplaned off the circuit and sustained damage.

 

 

The extent of that damage is unknown and whether or not we actually get to see the race today is also yet to be confirmed which is always a great shame for all those invested into the project.

Photo credits – GT Winter Series

 

 

Sharing the IMSA visit to Sebring next weekend is again the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series which this time around, sees a number of changes within the ranks of Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered runners since the season opening from Daytona in January.

Whilst the opening round at Daytona saw a healthy five AMR car representation amongst the fifty-one-car entry, the provisional entry list for Sebring still shows five similar cars although there are a few changes to last time.

 

 

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas this weekend as the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie attempted to host its opening round to the season around the always challenging Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

Over one hundred and thirty cars were at least able to get some practice laps in during the heavy rain affected test day on Friday before all expected to arrive at the circuit this morning for both the qualifying sessions and the opening four-hour race.

 

However, by then there had been an overnight blanketing of snow and ice around the local area further compounded by a lingering fog – metrological conditions that can even blight the workings of the of the Eiffel mountains circuit over the course of the annual 24 hour in June.

Despite getting the cars back out on track in the latter afternoon, track and ambient temperatures were deemed still too low for allow for safe racing around the fifteen-mile circuit, so NLS 1 was cancelled.

 

At least we will only have to wait until next weekend for NLS2 to be attempted!

Photo credits – Teams / Circuit

 

 

Great to see the first Aston Martin Racing powered entry confirmed today within the French national FFSA GT4 Series as both David Levy and Jodie Sloss return for a second season together within their #5 Vantage GT4.

Having debuted last season, the young Scot came with limited GT4 racing knowledge having only competed with a part GT Cup Championship season with the then Forsetti Motorsport team before turning her attention to France.

 

 

 

The Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie becomes the first traditional European based race series to get its 2026 programme underway this weekend with its first of ten rounds around the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife between now and mid-October.

Compared to previous seasons within the NLS Series, all Aston Martin Racing powered participation moves to the front of their traditional diverse and expansive grids will all three AMR powered entries competing within the SP9 class.

Over the winter, the usual participants from the Prosport Racing team have seen them realign to another platform leaving just there older iteration of Vantage GT3 to compete with the two Walkenhorst Motorsport and their newer Evo’d cars.

 

Blackthorn filled in their missing blanks today ahead of their return to the Michelin Le Mans Cup Series this year with their #91 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3.

Team owner and lead driver, Claude Bovet was confirmed by the team and the series when the provisional entry list to this season’s campaign was confirmed back in January.

 

 

Today’s news sees the team confirm that Tom Canning will be stepping up to the European series for the first time having spent the last few seasons competing in GT4 after a brief racing period through 2020-21 in GT3 with TF Sport across three series.

Fellow AMR Vantage GT3 runners, Racing Spirit of Leman are apparently (according to Endurance Info) concluding their final test and appreciation sessions with various drivers to see who will be partnering Tom Wood within their #10 car entry. We also await confirmation of who will be joining Antoine Leclerc within the declared #11 Code Racing Development AMR Vantage GT3.

 

 

Opening the season with back-to-back racing weekend’s, the GT4 Winter Series closes its seasons with another pair of race weekends as they now move from Motorland Aragon and onto the Circuit de Catalunya for this coming weekend’s finale.

Despite claiming two more class podium finishes in Aragon, that was the last that we will see of the white #007 Araujo Competicao Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 Evo before they announce their summer racing commitments.

 

 

However, we will again be seeing the #700 Mucke Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 of Thilo Goos as well as team owner and former AMR works driver Stefan Mucke for these three final races of the season. Hopefully this time, we will see something of the tall German other than just his hands upon the steering wheel from their in-car feeds.

 

 

It wasn’t all plain sailing for the two Aston Martin Racing powered entries within this weekend’s fourth round of the GT4 Winter Series although sailing was a more appropriate term for the track condition the gid faced for the opening round on Saturday at Motorland Aragon.

Again, we welcomed back the Araujo Competicao AMR Vantage GT4 but with just Frederico Peters running within the #007 Evo whilst within the #700 Mucke Motorsport, we would be seeing both Thilo Goos but also that of former AMR factory driver (and team owner) Stefan Mucke alongside.

 

 

With Thursday testing and Friday practice sessions blighted with passing rain showers, Saturdays opening thirty-minute sprint race started behind the Safety Car before finally being released a few laps in. Things were initially going well as the #007 Araujo car picked off the places to move into P3 overall just as the #700 car of Goos went into a gravel trap.

Firmly stuck, that would bring back the Safety Car again which effectively ended the race for all as the clean-up operation used all of the then eleven minutes remaining. None the less, Peters was still able to claim a P3 overall and P2 in class finish for his efforts.

 

It appears that Blackthorn AMR will not be the only the AMR powered team due to compete within the International GT Open Series as the Polish based Good Speed Racing team also cut a new racing pathway with their transition from the Mercedes AMG GT3 to the Vantage GT3 Evo.

Having been established for a number of years now, the team has most recently competed within the European based GT Cup Series as well as the GT Winter Series. They show an expected driver line up of both Piotr Wira and Tomas Magdziarz.

 

For probably the first since the team last stuck a racing toe onto the grid of the GT Open Series, the Blackthorn AMR team have today confirmed their return to the European series with one of their Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3’s and a very familiar crew.

Principally listing both gentleman driver Charles Bateman alongside AMR factory driver Jonny Adam, the team have also confirmed that fellow factory driver Henrique Chaves will be on hand to step aboard their car for when the Scot is doubled booked with his already busy 2026 racing schedule.

Recent seasons have seen several ad-hoc AMR powered entries into the series, but it has been many years since there has been any full season entry so we will have to do a bit of research to get back up to speed with the demands of that series which starts with a winter test in Barcelona in just a couple of weeks’ time before an eight round alternate sprint and endurance round across the year.

Previous full season AMR powered entries have come from the likes of TF Sport, Solaris, GPR Racing and Bullitt Racing.

Photo credits – Team / Series

 

As the German based team continue to go about their pre-season testing business around Europe, the Walkenhorst Motorsport team have been the first Aston Martin Racing powered team to confirm their participation within this year’s ADAC Ravenol Nurburgring 24 Hour.

Having already confirmed a multi- AMR Vantage GT3 participation within the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance and Sprint Cups Series, the team today confirmed a two-car entry into this year’s event in both the SP9 and SP9 Pro-Am classes.

 

Good news coming out of the USA this evening as the Van Der Steur Aston Martin Racing team confirm another driver line up for the team within the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series.

Debuting next time around from Sebring in just a couple of weeks, sees established racers Trenton Estep and Allen Patten join forces for the first time within the teams #66 AMR Vantage GT4 Evo – presumably alongside their more established husband and wife racing duo of Christine and Ben Sloss.

Estep’s racing history has mainly been Porsche related within, most recently the GT World Challenge America Series whist Patten’s career to date has been a little bit more cosmopolitan. To find out whether this is a full season as just a Sebring only entry remains to be seen or learned as Patten has already announced an entry within the GT4 America Series.

Photo credit - Team