The Heart of Racing team extended their best collective performance within the FIA World Endurance Championship from Hyperpole and into the race itself yesterday as both blue Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 powered crews finished on the class podium but with one of their Hypercar entries only just missing out on similar.
Saturday had already seen the #27 secure pole position for Sundays six-hour race at the Circuit of the Americas, just ahead of its #23 sister car for the first ever front row lockout in the championship whilst the #007 Valkyrie had claimed its best Hyperpole finish to date with a P4 starting position.
All of that work could have been literally washed away at the start of this fifth round of the season as the heavens opened around parts of the Texan circuit just as the cars were going to the grid. Race Control fortunately became wise to the developing situation, allowing the grid to procession around the circuit at a Safety Car enforced speed that helped to dissipate the water, allowing the race to kick off as designed in its two-by-two formation just a few laps later.
Whilst the was some side-to-side door bashing going on, especially within the opening few laps and sometimes with blue Aston upon blue Aston, all successfully made it around the circuit for the first time except for two minor spins.
With pole setter Gray Newell initially losing several places at the start, we presume that wise calming words over the radio from his co-drivers of Jonny Adam and Edurdo Barrichello helped the young American to calm his nerves and to pick himself up again from where he had left off in qualifying as tehir sister #27 car of Ian James jockeyed for the class lead up front.
Within the Hypercar class, the hard tyred #007 of Harry Tincknell and Ton Gamble were still able to get away and still ran better than the medium tyre shod #009 sister car of Marco Sorensen and Alex Riberas for much of the opening half of the race as (especially) the #007 race position continued to be just outside of the top five for much of the time.
Soon it was minimum drive time done for both Newell and James as they handed over to their silver co-drivers in Barrichello and Zacharie Robichon respectively for the middle section of the race – something that was interrupted with a somewhat prolonged Virtual Safety Car / Safety Car period whilst various issues with the circuit were sorted. When the racing did finally resume, the #007 was holding P3 overall, #009 P9 in hypercar with the #27 still at the front of the LMGT3 class but with the #23 now in hot pursuit in fourth.
Whilst most of the drivers were reporting back high tyre degradation issues with their respective Michelin and Goodyear tyres (as expected), nothing really hampered the cars for too long as the two drivers cycled through their stints within both Valkyries whilst both Vantage LMGT3 crews still had three of them in each to utilise.
Eventually in LMGT3, the #27 began to pull clear of its closest rivals as the race headed into its final hour for Mattia Drudi to take the chequered flag for their first race win of the season by a comfortable five second gap but with the #23 car of Adam just another couple of seconds back again to round off an American 1-3 for the team.
There was also smiles around the performance of the #007 Valkyrie as Tincknell and Gamble gambled a bit with both strategy and race craft to finally come home P4 overall for the cars best ever finish within the FIA WEC. The #009 car finished P13.
As the cars now head towards Japan and the next round of the season from Fuji Speedway at the end of September, those results see Adam and Newell move up to 6th in the Drivers’ Championship with the #27 crew up to 9th – all still within easy reach of the existing leaders with still three rounds to go.
Photo Credits – Team / DPPI
