An impressive start by both AMR powered teams in WECs delayed Prologue test in Qatar

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

It appears that despite their car’s late arrival to the circuit, Monday and Tuesday’s track sessions that formed the revised FIA World Endurance Championship pre-season Prologue test has gone quite well for the two Aston Martin Racing powered entries.

Arriving in the dead of night and giving both the Heart of Racing and D’Station Racing teams just hours to prepare their new for 2024 Vantage LMGT3 cars ahead of scrutineering and the first available test session, that both cars have come away with very respectable performance from that available track time.

Originally having four sessions allocated to the new Hypercar/LMGT3 class grid, transit delays to Qatar lead to the race organisers first delaying and then rescheduling the available track time to just three out of the four available. That at least gave the teams now running a catch-up agenda time to prepare for what was ahead.

Unsurprisingly, neither Aston Martin entered the first session on Monday before both ran in the second session with both the #27 Heart of Racing and #777 D’Station Racing submitting lap times worthy of their top six finish in class – just 0.2 of second off the initial pace setter.

Session three again saw the entire grid run but it was the #777 car of Marco Sorensen, Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard who set the pace within the GT class to the tune of just 0.153 of a second whilst the #27 car of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli come home fifth quickest.

Today’s final session saw those who ran in Mondays opener sit this one out and again the #777 D’Station Racing AMR secured top spot within GT whilst doubling their time advantage to the chasing #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari.

Whilst these times look good for each team, they were backed up with merited individual performances where both James and Mancinelli secured fourth and fifth overall fastest GT lap times closely followed by both Sorensen and Bastard in seventh and eighth fastest respectively with all Aston Martin drivers featuring within the top thirteen of LMGT3 drivers – an incredible achievement for teams with new cars and (in the case of the #777) new drivers.

Whilst the teams now strip down each car, thoughts now turn to the opening round of the WEC that’s starts in Qatar this later this week with the first officially timed track sessions and the opening 1812km race on Saturday.

Photo credits – Teams / AMR / Social media