Joining the Michelin Pilot Challenge crews at the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca next weekend will be of course the headlining IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship runners from the GTP, GTD Pro and GTD classes with another sizeable grid of thirty-six cars expected.
After some challenging rounds already this season at Daytona, Sebring and moist recently around the streets of Long Beach California, next week sees the crews move slightly away from the coast to the home of the infamous Corkscrew for a two hours and forty-minute race this time around.
With next weekend being the first of the IMSA / FIA World Endurance Championship diary clashes, the Heart of Racing has been forced to make a driver change within one of their two entries.
Within GTP, their Aston Martin Valkyrie entry for Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis remains unchanged with the #27 crew praying for some performance relief from IMSA technical after Long Beach showed just how vulnerable the not hybridised Aston Martin was around the street circuit just a few weeks ago and Laguna Seca would be expected to be little different.
As with both the team’s IMSA and FIA WEC programme with their new hypercar race programme, everything this year is new and the development of that car appears to be heading in the right direction in terms of endurance and longevity but as usual, it’s just the performance side that needs a little help.
Joining them again at Laguna Seca will also be the #27 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD of (usually) Casper Stevenson and Tom Gamble but Gamble’s pre-occupation with his HoRT’s FIA WEC commitments at Spa Francorchamps, Belgium on the same weekend means that the team have called upon the racing services of their GT World Challenge America GT3 racer in Darren Turner to pair up with his countryman Stevenson for this racing adventure.
Despite both Daytona and Sebring being podium winning successes for the #27 crew, last time out at Long Beach was something of a reality check after losing early ground with delaying that Full Course Yellow pit stop, and driver change process to later suffering the effects after heavy contact from a passing GTP car. At the end of that race, the #23 GTP finished as high as it has so far this season in P8 whilst the #27 finished a disappointing for them P9.
This race will be waved off at 15:10hrs local on Sunday May 11th.
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