A great IMSA day at the office for the Heart of Racing team from Sebring

That euphoria was however, not continued across the trio of Aston Martin powered teams as the #19 Van Der Steur GTD entry of Rory Van Der Steur, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Andrew McIntosh sadly lost out with continuing their great IMSA GTD debut from Daytona with four hours still remaining.

That team lost ground from the start after stopping on track during one of the earlier Free Practice sessions saw them as the cause of the red flag which negated their fastest lap in Qualifying to see them start way down in P16 in class. With McIntosh taking the start for the opening few stints, the #19 AMR Vantage GTD was then apparently subject for a few energy management issues which saw Hasse-Clot later pinged for a Drive through Penalty as a result, eventually forcing the car behind the wall for further inspection.

Despite their best of efforts and with Van Der Steur taking the car back out again (albeit many laps down by now), the car was eventually retired.

On the plus side however, the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GTD of Zacharie Robichon, Casper Stevenson and Tom Gamble has no such issues as they managed their run through both the pack from their P6 in class starting position, avoiding all the early FCY intervention for (usually) prototypes ending up in the wall/tyre barrier to remain within the top half dozen as day turned to night and the final dash to the flag.

It was the teams FIA World Endurance Championship Valkyrie Hypercar driver Tom Gamble who this time had the final stint, and on fresh rubber claimed that final step of the GTD podium to complement perfectly the results of the team at the opening round of the season at the Rolex 24 from Daytona.

If that wasn’t good enough, this even also saw the American debut of the Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Valkyrie GTP car after drivers Ross Gunn, Roman De Angelis and Alex Riberas had already helped perform the cars global debut at the FIA WEC opener in Qatar just a few weeks earlier.

Still at the relative lower end of their learning curve with that car, earlier track sessions saw continued adjustments being made that took literal seconds off the minimum track time to be more than comparable to their more establish peers during Qualifying. That on track performance continued in race trim throughout the race as the Valkyrie was never the slowest GTP car on track, even within the opening laps, as Gunn took the charge for the first time in IMSA.

As with any race, you have to be in it to win it and by avoiding incidents and accidents around them, the trio of drivers were able to keep the #23 car on the lead lap for much of the race – typically cycling around the P10 position in class.

At the end of the twelve hours, the #23 Valkyrie had finished its hardest test to date nineth in class and just two laps off the leaders. Whilst some of that would have been race trim performance, part of it at least was down to a drive through penalty for the crew for exceeding its power delivery parameters but otherwise it was a job well done. This new additional data will now obviously back track into the teams two FIA WEC contenders ahead of their next round in Italy.

The next IMSA race for the Valkyrie GTP will be a whole new experience again as that will be around the streets of Long Beach, California in about four weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Team / series / social media