Their slim LMGT3 Championship hopes finally slip through the fingers of the two AMR crews in Fuji

Monday, September 16, 2024

The other weekend’s home win at the Circuit of the Americas proved itself to be too little too late for the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing powered crew within yesterday’s penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship from Fuji Speedway in Japan.

For them and their AMR powered stablemates from the locally based D’Station Racing team, a combination of better performance, better strategy and massively enhanced championship points position going into this six-hour round were all too much for either Aston Martin team with both the race and the inaugural LMGT3 Championship wins going to other teams.

With the new 2024 Vantage LMGT3 being the machine to have in Texas, that certainly was not the case under the shadows of Mount Fuji as both the #27 Heart of Racing car of Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas together with the #777 D’Station racing car of Clement Mateu, Erwan Bastard and Marco Sorenson had little to offer in terms of resistance against the performances of their peers with qualifying positions being down within the midst of their class.

Despite that, both cars gave it their best shot with the #27 car of James quickly moving up into the top five in class whilst Mateu was slightly slower in moving up as shenanigans within the topflight class placed the race under a quick Safety Car period.

Quarter distance and the race was running well for both Aston Martin’s, both running within the top ten, as the two bronze rated drivers drove out the remanence of their minimum drive time under a Virtual and actual Safety Car following a track clean up exercise by Race Control before handing over to their respective silver grade drivers for the middle stints.

Cycling as high as third for the #27 crew, neither Aston Martin seemed to have the pace to compete along the circuits long straight into what became the favourite place of action into turn one.

Going into the final third of the race, the LMGT3 Champiosnhip leading Manthey Pure RX Porsche was then at the head of the class which made the Fuji 6Hr a near impossible task for the #27 crew as their slim hopes were reliant upon podium finish of their own with the #92 not scoring.

Further VSC and SC call outs brough the classes back together again as Hypercars either failed by the trackside or collected each other in the heat of the battle and with the only car able to challenge the #92 Porsche on track struggling around with a puncture, the championship writing was already on the wall with still over ninety minutes remaining.

With the sun beginning to fade over the circuit, troubles for the #777 were again compounded after Sorenson first received a Drive Through penalty for crossing the pit exit blend line before being further reported to race stewards for allegedly exceeding the maximum power parameters of the cars BoP.

At the end of another exciting six hours of mixed class racing, the #92 Porsche eventually finished second overall to seal the LMGT3 Championship win so by the #777 eventually snatching a late P7 finish in class on the final lap and a P9 finish eventually for the #27 car all counted for nothing.