Aston Martins latest FIA WEC racing chapter begins this week at the Prologue test
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Thirty-six cars and crews have been listed for the test and for the first time, Aston Martin powered teams now feature within the new world Hypercar and LMGT3 classes that now make up the series. American Heart of Racing team provided three of the four Aston Martin entries with two of its debuting Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars alongside its AMR Vantage LMGT3 with the Swiss based Racing Spirit of Leman team supplying the second LMGT3 as they step up the main event for the first time this year.
Having seen the Valkyrie test for the Heart of Racing team at a recent IMSA test at Sebring, this will be the first time both of their WEC Valkyrie entries will be seen on track together in their green based WEC livery with its full driver line ups after a brief shakedown test at Silverstone a week or so ago.
With just two classes again this year, it is an equal split in numbers between classes that will see the teams being able to run within two test sessions per day over the available Friday and Saturday running before the opening round of the season at the Losail circuit next weekend.
As already confirmed, the #007 Hypercar will be driven at the test by Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn with the sister #009 car will be driven by Alex Riberas, Marco Sorensen and Roman De Angelis. These are each cars respective Le Mans 24hr driver crews with each car runner just the first two drivers for all other rounds whilst both Gunn and De Angelis will operate the team's IMSA programme.
Meanwhile in LMGT3, the #27 Heart of Racing entry will again see Ian James take charge alongside that of Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi whilst the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman entry carries the familiar names of Derek DeBoer, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Eduardo Barrichello. These cars will race with the stated trio including at Le Mans.
Preliminary Balance of Performance parameters has been issued to each manufacturer within each class, but these will be expected to change between the start of the test and Qualifying for the next weekend’s opening race as more technical test information becomes available to the technical body within the FIA.
We already see that the Heart of Racing team have applied to the WEC to have access to their Valkyrie test chassis that apparently remains in Qatar after private testing there last year as a source of spare parts if required – but the series has rejected that request stated that spare cars remain prohibited, so we assume that that car must be dismantled first to allow the scavenging of parts (if required).
Track action brings the season off to an official start with the first test session beginning at 13:00hrs local on Friday.
Photo credits – Aston Martin / Team / social media
