Four Aston Martins all set for opening round of FIA WEC in Qatar tomorrow

Running two brand new cars for the first time at both the Prologue and the earlier track sessions of this opening round hasn’t always gone according to plan for the Heart of Racing team with at least one car faltering on track during Free Practice whereas the two Vantage GT3 crews have basically picked up where last season left off even though this is another step up the GT racing ladder for the Racing Spirit of Leman team.

Despite running Free Practice times equivalent to the LMGT3 Hyperpole qualifying times set last season when the Vantage LMGT3 was itself a brand new car, todays Qualifying session saw both the #10 RSLM and #27 HoRT Astons run a more sedate pace with both Derek DeBoer and Ian James behind the wheels to end that session P12 for the American in the #10 car and P7 for the Brit (living in America) in the #27 car – hence they progressed into the latter Hyperpole session where they would eventually finish P7 in that top ten in class shootout.

In the Hypercar class, there were obviously no comparisons for either the #007 or #009 cars as tomorrows race is the world racing debut of their new Hypercar programme in either its WEC or IMSA format. That should have been at Daytona at the Rolex 24 of course but the team elected to delay that appearance by a few more weeks, so its debuts are now at Qatar in WEC and at Sebring next month in IMSA.

Starting off the week with gentle 1:44:00 lap times in FP1, 1:42:00 laps times were then achieved by both chassis at the end of the practice process earlier today. That was improved again later in Qualifying within the #007 car of Harry Tincknell who posted a best time of 1:41:766 but that was still over three seconds off the lead pace and worthy of a P16 starting position.

The Qualifying lap times of the #009 of Marco Sorensen were having deleted by Race Control for speeding within the pit lane at the end of the session – not that that mattered too much as the #009 crew still looked to replicate the faster pace of its sister car on track.

As Tincknell commented after Qualifying, he thinks that the race pace of the new Valkyrie is stronger than that of Qualifying and so for them, two cars finishing tomorrows race will be seen in a positive way by the team as they them move across to Sebring and an indicated full 24-hour test there in advance of Le Mans in June.

Completing each car’s driving rosters are: -

#007 – Harry Tincknell / Tom Gamble / Ross Gunn

#009 – Marco Sorensen / Alex Riberas / Roman De Angelis

#10 – Derek DeBoer / Valentin Hasse-Clot / Eduardo Barrichello

#27 – Ian James / Zacharie Robichon / Mattia Drudi

Tomorrows race will be waved off at 14:00hrs local tomorrow.

Photo credits – AMR / Team / Michelin / social media