This time qualifying in P8 within a total entry list of just nine cars saw the #2 car make up early ground as the race got underway amid a rain shower leaving the grid split over tyre selection. Electing to start on wets, Bell quickly moved up to third in the opening laps but was penalised for having crew members working upon the car whilst on the grid for which they received a drive through penalty.

Initially returning to the track in sixth, the now drying track lead to the cars who started on slicks to finally come through leading to another disappointing P8 finish. For race two on Sunday, the #2 car failed to take the start for (as yet) unknown reasons.

Then, within the longer GT World Challenge America Series, the #24 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GT3 of Gray Newell continued his GT3 development under the watchful eye of AMR factory driver Darren Turner who was racing at the circuit for the first time.

A change in strategy within the #24 car saw Newell ran longer in his opening stint in race one for the car to eventually return home fourth in class after Turner lost out to contact from another car whilst challenging for a podium position.

Their chances in race two a thwarted at an early stage on Sunday after the car found itself being boxed in during the opening corners where Turner lost momentum to then become baulked by slow cars on track up until the pit stop window. Again pitting differently to the pack, it was hoped that Newell could achieve the undercut but eventually lost out after himself being punted off track before returning for a lowly P7 finish.

The season will now conclude at Indianapolis for their eight-hour finale next month.

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Their #3 car of Jesse Webb and Jonathon Neudorf secured both a P3 in class finish after Fridays catch up race before adding to it with a P3 finish in class after race 2 on Sunday. Their sister #4 car of Mike David-Ortmann and Braydon Arthur fared slightly better as they secured a pair of P2 class finishes in both race 1 and race 2 over the weekend.

The other podium finish gained was from the #07 Skip Barber Racing AMR Am class entry of Alex and Micheal Garcia who secured a P3 finish in class on Sunday.

The #26 Heart of Racing AMR entry of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir suffered something of a trying weekend as they finished the Friday catch up race in sixth before then suffering technical issues that would force them to start both race 1 and 2 from the back of the pack before retiring from race 1 with further technical issues but at least they finished the otherwise difficult weekend with an encouraging P4 finish in class on Sunday.

The remaining #39 Van Der Steur AMR of Max Hewitt and Luca Mars unfortunately suffered slightly worse for their efforts with a DNF in both the catch-up race and race two on Sunday – punctuated only by a P4 finish on Saturday.

The series now moves onto its final race weekend of the season from Indianapolis in just over a month’s time.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

That obviously meant that no overtaking was possible with positions on track only changing with cars either spinning off in the conditions of with those making strategic calls into pit lane. For the two Aston Martin Valkyrie Hyopercars from the Heart of Racing team, that meant that the #009 car of Alex Riberas would move up to P6 by the end of that first hour of circulation whilst the sister #007 car of Tom Gamble would also move up to P13.

With deteriorating conditions on track plus an error on the part of Race Control regarding the swapping out of one Safety Car with another saw the race red flagged at the end of that first hour mark with crews not returning to their cars until the race clock had passed another forty-five minutes by for another Safety Car restart procedure.

Within the LMGT3 class, the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Ian James was holding second overall in class by the time the first racing laps came along just before the end of the second hour whilst the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR of Derek DeBoer was doing what he needed to do just to survive in nineth.

The first incident of note for any of the four Aston Martins came when Gamble hit a similar patch of flooded track to that of two other Hypercars and spun off into the tyre wall. Whilst the Porsche impacted heavily into the safer barrier, the glancing blow into the barrier to the rear of the #007 Valkyrie was enough for them needing to make repairs but not immediately like the Porsche as that incident brought out the Safety Car again.

Back to green at 3:40:00 remaining and that was the end of DeBoer two- and a-bit stint length and the end to his WEC career this season as he handed over his #10 car to Eduardo Barrichello from a then P5 position in class. DeBoer’s place within the car will now be taken by Anthony McIntosh for the remaining two rounds of the season.

Approaching the halfway mark to the race, the #009 was still comfortably within the top 10 whilst the #007 was slowly making their own way up the order whilst the #27 of (now) Zacharie Robichon was seventh with Barrichello a charging up the order P13 but that was before the #27 themselves became victim to the conditions with several pirouettes of their own on track before eventually recovering without damage.

Again, the track conditions varied according to which section of track the cars where at with some now experience a deterioration in performance with the tyres whilst others suffered from technical and mechanical defects that again warranted the need for Virtual Safety Car or Safety Car procedures.

With just over one hundred minutes of the race remaining, Marco Sorensen would get his first racing laps of the day aboard the #009 car after a Herculean effort from Riberas from the start as they now lapped a comfortable P8 with a decent points possibility now firmly upon the cards. Harry Tincknell was now also aboard the #007 car as he held a P6 position as well as the latest FCY would leave just an hour to go.

Initially seen dropping back on track, both Valkyries would come into pit lane for apparent service but clearly there were technical issues brewing within both cars as first the #007 stopped on the side of the track going into turn one before the #009 car later disappeared into its garage box with less than thirty minutes remaining for their first DNF’s of the season.

Longevity was also an issue for both AMR Vantage LMGT3 crews as they eventually dropped back to finish P6 on track for the #27 Heart of Racing entry of Mattia Drudi (elevated up to P5 post race) and P11 in class for the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman of Valentin Hasse-Clot as all now prepare for the penultimate round to the season from Japan at the end of the month.

Photo credits – Team / DPPI Images / social media

Rain finally interrupted what had been until then a total dry preparatory build up the six-hour Lone Star Le Mans event tomorrow with both Ian James and a returning Derek DeBoer again having to do what they could in LMGT3 Qualifying where the Englishman managed to get his #27 Heart of Racing Vantage LMGT3 through to Hyperpole by finishing P4 but the American could only manage a grid starting position of P16.

By the time that Zacharie Robichon then went out in the #27 car for a ten-minute shootout in Hyperpole, the rain was by then falling heavier and the Canadian could only manage a P10 starting position.

Next out were the two Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars with Harry Tincknell again driving the #007 car but with Alex Riberas aboard the #009 car this time around.

Again, rain was the issue and with some within the class electing early to run with full wets, the right way would only be proven by the end of that fifteen-minute session. Tincknell would end his day down in P15, but Riberas would again earn the #009 car an avenue in Hyperpole for the second time this season with a time worthy of a P8 placement.

Going out again into still deteriorating conditions, the #009 car had been running as high as P6 overall but had to settle for a season equalling best of P10 ahead of tomorrow’s race whatever Mother Nature will throw at the circuit and the thirty-six Hypercar and LMGT3 runners.

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Despite that and the race being the first time within the Championship and the LMGT3 variant of the AMR Vantage for McIntosh, that still permitted the #10 car to steal a late class podium finish by the end of what was the fifth round of the season nearly two months ago.

DeBoer rejoins his counterparts for this weekend’s six-hour race for what is listed as being his swansong appearance within the Championship this year before McIntosh again deputises for his countryman and sees out the remainder of the season.

The team also secured their first class win of the season within the parallel European Le Mans Series race from Spa Francorchamps two weeks ago where Hasse-Clot, Clement Mateu and Erwan Bastard did similar at the end of that four-hour affair so confidence within the team and crew should be running high

Amongst the eighteen strong LMGT3 entry also sees the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage LMGT3 of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi, a team who didn’t have a great showing last time out in Brazil where there usual steady progress saw them bring home a disappointing P14 in class finish for a second non points scoring finish to the year after James crashed out in Italy.

With three races of the season still to complete, both teams still find themselves significantly behind the present LMGT3 class leaders with a forty-two points deficit to the #27 crew – increasing to fifty-eight points for both Barrichello and Hasse-Clot within the #10 car.

Like the Hypercar class before it, the LMGT3 class will also see sweeping balance of performance changes across its nine strong manufacturer entry with the Vantage seeing changes within its power, energy and base weight parameters with the #10 car also getting additional success weight ballast thanks to their P3 finish last time out.

First track action for the event will be Free Practice 1 on Friday morning.

Photo credits - Teams

Much like last time out at Road America three weeks ago, there will be one Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 apiece in each of the GT World Challenge America and GT America Series racers as the #24 Heart of Racing AMR of Gray Newell and Darren Turner look to duplicate their P3 class winning podium winning efforts at Road America whilst the #2 Racers Edge AMR Vantage GT3 of Jason Bell just looks to get in some quality racing laps after another miserable venture out last time again.

Whilst the #24 HoRT AMR will again compete against fourteen other Pro, Pro-Am and Am class rivels, the entry list for the GT America races has thankfully increased to (albeit just) nine GT3 only based entries. For both crews, championship winning aspirations are not upon the radar this time around.

Finally, there will be the three, one-hour long races of the GT4 America Series as its scheduled twenty-three strong entry list- again featuring Aston Martin Racing powered entries across its silver and Am classes.

Road America started well in Qualifying for the JMF Motorsport and Van Der Steur AMR Vantage GT4 crews of Braydon Arthur and Mike David Ortmann secured pole position in their #4 car ahead of their #3 sister car of Jesse Webb and Jonathon Neudorf in second and the #39 Van Der Steur AMR of Max Hewitt and Luca Mars in third but for the rain storm that descended upon the circuit immediately prior to the start of that opening race. For that reason, race one from Road America has been rescheduled to run within this race weekend on top of its usually rostered two races.

For race 2 which did run on Sunday from Road America saw the #4 JMF crew take an overall solo race win for Ortmann after Arthur proved to be unwell on the day with the Am classed Skip Barber Racing AMR of Michael and Alex Garcia who claimed a second in their class whilst the #26 Heart of Racing Vantage Gt4 of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir finished just off the podium this time around, P4 in silver.

Championship wise – the #4 JMF crew of Arthur and Ortmann do still retain something of a mathematical possibility of lifting the silver class drivers crown at Indy, but they would need to certainly finish upon the podium for the remaining five races whilst hoping that the falter along the way themselves.

In Am, the Garcia brothers have a slightly easier points deficit to climb being just forty-two points the current leaders in fourth with these five races to go.

The revised race programme for the GT4 America Series will see the Road America make-up race being ran after Free Practice 2 on Friday before reverting back to its more usual race programme format over both Saturday and Sunday.

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Many US-based motorsport fans are familiar with Valkyrie, which is the only LMH to compete in both the FIA WEC and in North America’s IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and has scored top 10 finishes in every race it has contested in the USA – including Road America most recently, where the US-based version of the Aston Martin THOR Team finished in an encouraging sixth place.

In WEC, where Aston Martin competes against seven of the world’s most prominent endurance sportscar manufacturers, Valkyrie is also growing in competitiveness. This was evidenced by its combined best qualifying performance (11th and 12th) in the most recent Rolex 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, in July. The car also raced deep into the top ten in the early hours of the event. This follows an encouraging 24 Hours of Le Mans (in June) where both Valkyrie Hypercars completed their maiden twice-around-the-clock event without issue, finishing 12th and 14th, and the UK-based ‘WEC’ arm of the Aston Martin THOR Team registered the cars’, and Aston Martin’s first Manufacturer’s World Championship points in the Hypercar Class.

Valkyrie made its global debut in the Qatar 1812km in February. The British machine has subsequently demonstrated outstanding reliability, having finished 14 times from 15 starts in all competitions.

The Aston Martin THOR Team will keep to its two regular WEC Valkyrie line-ups for the Lone Star Le Mans, with the #007 driven by Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell and the #009 by Alex Riberas and Marco Sørensen.

There are few circuits on Earth more suited to showcasing the breathtaking prowess of Aston Martin’s Vantage GT3 than the Circuit of the Americas – the venue for Round 6 of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the scene of unprecedented glory for the British brand’s most successful racing car.

In its various iterations, Vantage has claimed no less than 10 class victories derived from 13 podium appearances – four of which were double-class wins – as well as seven class pole positions. Its credentials were cemented further in 2024, when the latest iteration – Vantage GT3 – underpinned The Heart of Racing’s (THOR) and team principal Ian James maiden victory in the LMGT3 Class, along with his co-drivers Alex Riberas who now forms part of the Valkyrie works line-up, and Daniel Mancinelli.

James returns this year as a regular class frontrunner, alongside Zach Robichon and Mattia Drudi looking to repeat the team’s home race heroics of 2024 with of the #27 Vantage.

The Racing Spirit of Léman crew, returns to its original 2025 driver line-up of Derek DeBoer, Eduardo Barrichello and Aston Martin works driver Valentin Hasse-Clot in the #10 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The team arrives in Austin still on a high from its first WEC podium finish in LMGT3, after Barrichello raced to a dramatic third place in the closing stages of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo in July. RSL will be looking to maintain that momentum in Texas this weekend.

“It seems as though we have been competitive all season long in WEC,” said Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport Adam Carter. “And yet for one reason or another, it’s taken until the second half of the season for Vantage to achieve its podium potential. A winner last year in COTA, we see no reason why both cars are not capable of competing for similar results this year in the Lone Star Le Mans. We wish both our partner teams (The Heart of Racing and Racing Spirit of Léman) well in pursuit of this goal.”

Source material – Aston Martin (Racing)

Whilst Mike Fitzpatrick and his 89X team probably had a race weekend to forget with early race DNF’s in both forty minute races otherwise spoiling his previous experiences in mainstream GT4 racing of late, DePew would see his yearly tally of podium finishes more than double at the weekend as he secured two P3 podium Bronze Cup finishes in each of race 2 and the CTMSP added race 3 to go with his earlier P4 finish at the start of the weekend.

After that, we had the four regular Michelin Pilot Challenge Series full season entries from the Rebel Rock, Team TGM and Van der Stuer teams amongst the forty strong GS (GT4) and TCR based entry.

A regular two hour race this time around saw the #46 Team TGM car of Paul Holton and Matt Plumb again starting from within the top five with the other three Astons to the rear of the GS pack. This time around, the #46 crew were able to keep their car pointing in the right direction as occasional carnage lead others to do differently to bring their car home in P6 whilst the #71 Rebel Rock entry of DePew and Robin Liddell improved upon their starting position of P16 to end the day P9 – ending a dreadful and unfortunate run of damage induced DNF’s from the last two rounds.

The triumph in class again came from the two Bronze Cup entries of Christine and Ben Sloss in the #15 Van Der Steur entry alongside the #64 Team TGM car of Ted Giovanis and Hugh Plumb who secured another win in class to add to their championship leading tally with the husband and wife duo left to make do with a P3 finish to fall further behind the #46 car with just two races of the season remaining.

The headline event was of course reserved for the GTD only entry of the Weathertech Sportscar Championship meaning that only those within both the GTD Pro and GTD classes were able to run this weekend – mainly because of the design of compactness of the VIR circuit.

That meant both Tom Gamble and Casper Stevenson were back within the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GT3 Evo again after their bruising experience last time out at Road America a couple of weeks ago.

With the #27 car again fully restored to its racing beauty, saw Stevenson qualify the car P4 in the GTD class ahead of yesterday’s two hours and forty-minute race. This time determined not to get caught up in other people’s incidents and accidents, the #27 pairing drove a solid race to answer their own disappointment of late with a P3 podium finish at the end despite still being bumped down to P11 on the opening lap after heavy contact from behind. That result helped keep alive Stevenson’s GTD drivers championship aspirations with just two races of the season left to go.

Next time out for both the Weathertech Sportscar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge AMR runners will be from Indianapolis in a month’s time before concluding the season for all series from Petit Le Mans in mid-October.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

“But the team did an incredible job, they dug in and pulled an all-nighter on Friday, and I simply can’t thank them enough. They really had to make parts and repair the unrepairable to get us back out there, but they did, and we ended up with a fast race car as well!”

The crew rebuilt the Vantage enough for both drivers to cautiously complete a single lap in their respective qualifying sessions to register for the races, Newell in ninth and Turner seventh.

The first race proved to be a washout as an electrical storm and then torrential rain brought an early halt to proceedings. Newell worked his way up to sixth in the 15 laps that did take place, many of which were behind the Safety Car to clean up another crash at Turn 11. Turner didn’t even get to drive the car.

It meant that Darren’s first competitive laps of the breathtaking, undulating and superfast 4.05-mile Road America since 2006, were completed at the start of the second race; this time held in blazing sunshine. And he had the bit between his teeth. Moving up a position on each of the first three laps, Turner was up to sixth in the Pro-Am class and 11th overall before the race had even settled into its stride.

“The car was really fast,” said Turner. “I had some great battles. But then I caught one of the Pro class BMWs and we got stuck behind them until they pitted. I then had another four laps before my stop, and I used those to get my head down and really press on.”

Use them he did, and by the time Turner pitted he was fourth in class, as well as overall. Once the dust had settled and the field had completed its driver changes, Newell found himself running third and sixth overall… thanks in no small part to slick work by the pit crew.

“Gray did a superb job and was really strong,” said Turner. “He was closing in on the BMW in second place and if the race had gone on for three or four more laps under green flag conditions, he would have had a real chance of attacking for the class's runner-up spot.”

Newell’s pursuit of second place was cut short by a late full course caution, which ultimately released the field into a chaotic one-lap sprint at the race’s end, but Gray stayed calm and out of trouble to deliver the podium. If you discount the race Turner didn’t drive in on Saturday, it marked the fourth time in succession that Turner had stepped onto the podium, having recorded a second and a third in the previous GT World Challenge America meeting at Virginia International Raceway in July. He then followed that up with third place in the Aston Martin LM4 at Silverstone, immediately prior to the Road America weekend.

In the end though, this weekend was all about THOR and the team’s remarkable engineers and mechanics.

“The pace on Friday looked good. We should have been starting further up the grid and who knows what we could have achieved if we hadn’t been put on the backfoot by the incident,” said Turner. “There is a feeling of frustration because my mistake probably didn’t give us the best opportunity, but that’s racing, and these things do happen. But it’s how you bounce back that counts, and the team achieved a deserved podium. I’m just massively grateful to them all for their efforts and for getting us back on track on Saturday. Everyone just went above and beyond, and I’m super happy that we were able to reward everyone.”

Turner’s next outing in the GT World Challenge America is at Barber Motorsport Park, on 5-7 September.

Source material – Darren Turner

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

Qualifying for race two on Sunday has already taken place earlier on Saturday which saw the #3 JMF car of Jesse Webb and Jonathon Neudorf secured a P2 starting position with the #39 VDS entry of Max Hewitt/Luca Mars, the #4 JMF entry of Mike David Ortmann/Braydon Arthur (although not racing today by 'force majeure) and the #26 Heart of Racing AMR of Hannah Grisham/Hannah Greenemeir were all a bit further back in P6-P7-P8 respectively in silver whilst the #07 SBR entry was down in P23 overall – P7 in class.

Sunday at least provided the grid with a bright and dry race surface to go battling on the race finally got underway to its usual frenetic self as cars went two-three wide into the opening corners. With the first few racing laps of the weekend now under their belts, the #07 SBR had improved at the tail of the pack whilst both JMF Astons were heading the brand in P4 and P7 overall.

At quarter race distance, the JMF cars were then nose to tail in fifth and sixth with the #VDS Aston in eighth and the HoRT #26 car stagnating in P13 at the tail of the silver class.

Contact between two cars during the pitstop window saw Race control hold out until all remaining cars had served their stop before going to Full Course Yellow to pick up the stranded BMW before going back to green with just over twenty minutes remaining but will all four silver class Astons now within the top ten overall.

Another hectic restart saw contact between the top two cars before another made heavy contact with the concrete wall a little further back as the two JMF and VDS Astons traded paint between themselves for position. The clean-up operation left just a nine-minute dash to the flag.

Webb in the #3 took an early lead into the restart but side to side contact between the #3 and the #77 Porsche saw those two cars spin out – taking the #39 VDS Aston with it leaving the #4 JMF car of Ortmann at the head of the pack before a third FCY was called for that incident on track.

Unfortunately, the race was to finish behind the Safety with the #4 JMF AMR of Ortmann and Arthur claiming the race win with the #26 HoRT of the two Hannah’s taking P5 overall/P4 in class whilst the 307 SBR AMR had moved up to claim a P12 overall/P2 in Am finish for their efforts. Whilst the #3 and #39 cars would eventually finish – both would be outside of the points.

Next stop for a triple header will be from Barber Motorsport Park.

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