Podium joy and heartache for the Heart of Racing AMR team at Le Mans

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Dreams do come true occasionally and Gray Newell must be thinking that right now having just seen his #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 that he shared with Eduardo Barrichello and Jonny Adam safely cross the finish line at the 20 Hours of Le Mans in podium winning position.

Under much warming track conditions that Test Day just last weekend, the 94th Edition to the event around the Circuit de La Sarthe kicked off yesterday afternoon in a surprisingly orderly fashions as the sixty two runners split between the headlining Hypercar, the guesting for the event LMP2 and the full season LMGT3 classes went about their opening laps watching on by another packed in crowd.

The two Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyries had shown great pace during the test day, but their race pace was down compared to that of their rivals as both the #007 and #009 cars quickly dropped down the hypercar order during the opening laps to circulate just above that of the two Peugeots.

The three AMR Vantage LMGT3’s from both the Heart of Racing and Racing Spirit of Leman teams picked up from where they had left off with Mattia Drudi leading the class from his earlier won pole position in his #27 car, with Jonny Adam starting the sister #23 in the mid-table in class and with Valentin Hasse-Clot opening the order for the #59 RSLM crew for the best part of the opening hour.

Once the bronze ranked drivers had taken charge of their respective LMGT3 cars, they thankfully avoided all the earlier trouble and strife around the circuit as the dreams and hopes of others came crashing down for one reason or another with the two Valkyrie crews doing likewise further up the order despite being obviously outpaced by most of the hybrid-based competitors around them.

As darkness fell around the circuit, the track temperature remained higher than recent nights but still cool enough for most hypercars to go onto the Michelin soft tyre for the first time.

Coming out the other side of the darkness and into Sunday morning, all five Aston Martin remained relatively in the same positions as the #007 and #009 ebbed and flowed up and down the order as the pit sequence filtered through the class but still within reach of a top ten position.

The #27 Vantage remained in close contact with the class leaders having lead the class for much of the opening quarter to the race with the #23 sister car also doing what it needed to, both overall and in support of the quicker car up from whilst the #59 was never able to break free and establish a race position much higher than P15 in class.

Heartache would come to the Heart of Racing team with little under three hours to go as gearbox issues ended the chances of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi to better the just off the podium finish of last season.

With nerves obviously showing towards the countdown to the chequered flag and with the more experienced Adam by his side, the realisation soon struck the race debuting Newell that a class podium was quickly coming his way as Barrichello completed the final corners to claim a overall LMGT3 P3 finish. That result would be his and Barrichello’s first LM24 podium finish whilst it was Adam’s first since that heady day of a GTE Am class win.

The two Valkyries also both finished the race with their best finish at the twenty hour to date as the #007 car of Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn came home P8 overall and just two laps down to the winning Toyota whilst the #009 of Alex Riberas, Marco Sorensen and Roman De Angelis came home the last of the Hypercar runners in P14 but a further seven laps down having suffered a puncture at the remote end to the circuit on Sunday– two great performances non the less.

The #59 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR of Clement Mateu, Marius Fossard and Valentin Hasse-Clot also rallied at the end converting their P21 starting position into a P11 finish in class for their efforts.