Valkyrie Hypercar Qualifying torment today from Le Mans
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
After Sunday’s two pre-event test sessions, this afternoon saw the first Free Practice session run for the full sixty-two car entry, something that gave the teams a final three hours of track time before they were launched into the first of the Qualifying sessions later in the day and tomorrow.
Early indications appeared to be favourable for both Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars from the Heart of Racing team as well as their and the Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3’s.
Having been bolstered with a favourable power to weight ratio (amongst other power related parameters), both Valkyries finished that session off the bottom of the Hypercar class as the #007 outgunned the #009 sister with its British driver line up of Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn with a best lap time of just 1.920 seconds off that of the frontrunning cars.
Within the LMGT3, it was the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman car that stole the stable honours from the #23 Heart of Racing entry as Valentin Hasse-Clot, Derek DeBoer and Eduardo Barichello finished third in the timing screen nearly three tenths faster than that of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi.
That lead the proceedings into Qualifying Practice with the LMGT3’s sharing the track with the guesting LMP2 classes for what was supposed to be a thirty-minute session, however, with a car stopping on track near the Dunlop Bridge saw the session red flagged. That thrust strategy for most into a two fifteen-minute dashes and allowed everyone to take fresh tyres for the restart. Whilst James was already comfortably placed to make his way through to tomorrows Hyperpole again, DeBoer was on the cusp to start the second bout of hot laps that sadly saw the American drop to P18 in class at the end.
The real excitement, however, was within the Hypercar class as Marco Sorensen pushed his #009 (that he shares with Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis) to its first passage through Qualifying and into Hyperpole for the first time this season.
His initial charge was badly hampered with at least two or three other Hypercars dawdling for track position up to and within the final chicane onto the start straight. The presence of those cars effectively lost the Dane his best lap and in F1 would he seen one or more of those cars handed a penalty for impeding.
His initial charge was badly hampered with at least two or three other Hypercars dawdling for track position up to and within the final chicane onto the start straight. The presence of those cars effectively lost the Dane his best lap and in F1 would he seen one or more of those cars handed a penalty for impeding.
Thinking that the Valkyries turn was already over, a lap last lap dash from the #009 saw it leap-frog those above and into the final Hyperpole position only for the last struggling Porsche to come through to spoil the fairytale. The results from that session would mean that the #009 would start the 24 hour from P16 with the sister #007 from P21.
That does not complete the track action for the day, and the drivers now look forward to their first nighttime running around the circuit with the two-hour Free Practice 2 session before Free Practice 3 tomorrow alongside the new Hyperpole 1 and 2 sessions.
Photo credits – Teams / DPPI / ACO / social media / Kelvin Pope (Red Firecracker Media)
