First fly away round of the FIA WEC season this weekend from Brazil for the Heart of Racing Team

 

With the early track sessions to the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Six Hours of Sao Paulo just about to take place for the first time later today, there’s probably just about enough time to highlight that fact.

Round four of the revised 2026 calendar, this weekend’s visit to Brazil is also the first fly away round of the season following the postponement of the scheduled opener from Qatar as well as being the first round since the 24 Hours of Le Mans back in mid-June.

 

The Heart of Racing team of course return with their pair of Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars as well as their pair of Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3’s but with a little driver change within one of the latter’s, thanks to another diary clash with the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship.

Unfortunately for local racing hero, Brazilian Eduardo Barrichello will be missing his second home race of his so far short WEC career to concentrate upon his IMSA championship lead for the Heart of Racing team up in Canada so for him, there will be no repeat of his podium winning finish that he enjoyed last time out with the Racing Spirit of Leman team.

 

His space within the #23 HoRT AMR Vantage LMGT3 alongside both Jonny Adam and Gray Newell will be Kobe Pauwels again as was the case at the rescheduled season opener from Imola in mid-April. The #23 crew enjoyed a P3 podium winning position last time out at Le Mans.

For their sister #27 AMR Vantage LMGT3 of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi, it will be business as usual for the regular trio having suffered terminal gear box failure at Le Mans whilst being constantly being within the top three in class during the early hours of the Sunday morning.

 

That leaves the two Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercar entries for the back to two driver line up of both Harry Tinknell/Tom Gamble within the #007 car and Alex Riberas/ Marco Sorensen within the #009 car respectively.

Both crews enjoyed a very positive Le Mans 24Hr alongside their third-man drivers of Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis with the #009 car again getting through to Hyperpole2 before the #007 car out finished their sister crew to attain their best ever finish to the race within the cars two-year racing history at the circuit to finish P8 and P14 respectively.

That was running under ACO rules of Balance of Performance, and it will be back to the FIA WEC version of events this time around so it will be interesting to see just how the top set Hypercar series pans out.

Two ninety-minute Free Practice sessions will fill the timetable today (Friday) before Free Practice 3 precedes Qualifying/Hyperpole on Saturday. The six-hour race is flagged off at 11:30Hrs local.

Photo credits – Team / DPPI / Social media