The difference as season makes for the Aston Martin Valkyrie
Friday, November 07, 2025
Since those early days of first just wanting to finish and to literally keep the doors on the car, many things have changed and so going into tomorrow’s seasonal finale in Bahrain, the fruits of that progress and development has been very apparent.
Running of course parallel race programs with their IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship sister car, recent results have seen at least one of these Valkyries first break into Hyperpole qualifying within the WEC before securing their first ever podium finish at the season finale of the IMSA Championship.
Having had many of the team and crew get in some last minute R&R on the Galapagos Islands before this week’s finale, that investment have proved worthwhile for the team as the #007 Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn topped the qualifying timing screen for the first time, narrowly beating the sister #009 car of Marco Sorenson, Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis for a well-deserved 1-2 in class.
Moving into the later Hyperpole session, the fairytale season ending wasn’t quite there unfortunately as the #009 eventually finished sixth fastest with the #007 nineth ahead of tomorrow’s eight-hour race. Compare and contrast that to the distant P18 and P16 positions at the opening round in Qatar!!
It was harder work for the two Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 crews however, as both the #27 Heart of Racing AMR of Ian James, Mattia Drudi and Zacharie Robichon and the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR of Anthony McIntosh, Eduardo Barrichello and Valentin Hasse-Clot struggled within the mid table of their class during the three earlier Free Practice sessions after another swathe of Balance of Performance adjustments across the class.
As always, one hot lap is never enough for any endurance race as (like all), both crews will have another eight hours to improve upon their P4 and P15 qualifying positions (for the #27 and #10 cars respectively) after their own Qualifying and Hyperpole sessions.
The final race of the FIA WEC season will be waved off at 14:00hrs local before finishing under the veil of darkness (although the circuit is mostly floodlit) where all four crews could seriously improve upon their final championship positions in class with thirty eight points being again on offer to each class winner.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
