This is not the end - just the first page in another chapter in the story of Beechdean Motorsport.

Photo credits – Team / Phil Hay

 

We are presently suffering from a few technical gremlins where the link being quoted does not take you through to our site correctly. Whilst the link does work in other social media platforms, the links do not work at the moment upon X (Twitter) for some reason that we cannot fathom out.

If you go directly through to our home page at The-Advantage.org instead, all will be there to read. 

Many thanks.

Aston Martin’s stunning Valkyrie Hypercar achieved its best finish yet at the Circuit de la Sarthe, with British trio Tom Gamble, Ross Gunn and Harry Tincknell bringing the Aston Martin THOR Team #007 Valkyrie home eighth in the 94thedition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, on Sunday.

The result marked the fifth consecutive FIA World Endurance Championship points finish for the British-built hypercar, following the #007 crew’s strong start to the 2026 season where they finished ninth in Imola, and followed that up with Valkyrie’s best WEC finish yet; fourth at Spa-Francorchamps, last month.

“To get a car home in P8 is a big step forward for the programme,” said Ian James., Team Principal of Aston Martin Racing THOR Team. “It just shows how much progress we are making with the car, every race. We knew it would be a difficult for us to race against such strong opposition here at Le Mans but we worked hard and executed on all levels. It was great to see the #007 rewarded for the team’s hard work.”

Developed by Aston Martin and THOR from the Valkyrie production model, the Le Mans Hypercar version, eighth place was also the best finish at Le Mans for a car derived from a road-legal hypercar. Valkyrie is unique as the only car built to Hypercar homologation competing simultaneously in WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.

The Valkyries impressed through the build-up to the race, setting the fastest time of all in the official test and then proved a force in Hypercar qualifying. The #009 Valkyrie, driven by Marco Sørensen, Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis, placed seventh and the #007 11th.

The 62-strong field, waved away from the start line by Aston Martin High Performance Ambassador Sir Mark Cavendish (the former professional cyclist who holds the record for the most stage wins of the Tour de France), in front of 350,000-strong crowd, set a blazing pace in the early running. But by nightfall both Valkyries, emblazoned in special liveries featuring Union Jack, were into their stride and racing inside the top ten.

Ultimately it was the #007 which achieved the best result of the two; the #009 had been heading for its first points finish of the season until a technical issue in the final hour caused the team to pit, dropping the car from 10th in the WEC Hypercar class to 14th in the final order.

“This year’s Le Mans provided another encouraging step in Valkyrie’s WEC journey,” said Aston Martin Head of Endurance, Adam Carter. “Valkyrie’s pace on low fuel during the early part of the week was nice to see but also a little unrealistic when it came to the race, as a straightline speed deficit hampered us more once we switched to race trim. That said the team executed without fault as always, and this played a significant factor in us achieving a well-earned points finish in one of the toughest endurance races in the world.”

Source Material - HoRT

 

This morning’s news see no surprises within the #23 car as Ian James is again joined by both Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi as the Canadian and Italian look to build upon their rookie year of last season.

The team’s new for 2026 #27 car entry is confirmed with Newell as he takes another massive step up the GT racing ladder from his GT4 days within the GT America/GT4 America Series earlier and his GT3 experience from within the GT World Challenge America Series which he shared under the tutelage of AMR factory driver Darren Turner.

 

 

Joining him will be the familiar face of Eduardo Barrichello as the Brazilian goes double duty with the team within their WEC and IMSA race programmes this season with both drivers this year operating under the overall guidance of AMR factory driver Jonny Adam.

Two times Le Mans 24hr GTE class winner and multiple British GT Champion, the Scot needs no further introduction as Barrichello is himself only entering his second year of GT racing having competed within the championship last season with the Racing Spirit of Leman team.

 

 

“I am super excited to be joining The Heart of Racing in 2026 and returning to WEC,” said Adam. “Teaming up with Dudu, who had some awesome performances last season in LMGT3, alongside supporting Gray’s first year in WEC and the Le Mans 24 Hours is something that I’m really getting fully involved in. The goal is to gain experience along the way and hopefully have some successful results for the team with the Aston Martin Vantage. I believe that’s entirely possible with this line-up.”

Although probably already testing together somewhere around the world, the more official track action isn’t that far away with the Prologue Test which precedes the opening round to the season in Qatar just over three weeks away.

 

The Heart of Racing team will be the sole runners of both Aston Martin and Aston Martin Racing powered machinery this season.

Photo credits – Team / Series / Blackthorn

 

 

The new Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar enters the second half of its trailblazing maiden season in the FIA World Endurance Championship when it races on South American soil for the first time at Interlagos, for the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, this weekend.

Following an encouraging 24 Hours of Le Mans last month where both Valkyrie hypercars completed their maiden twice-around-the-clock event without issue, finishing 12th and 14th, the works Aston Martin Heart of Racing Team registered the cars’, and Aston Martin’s first Manufacturer’s World Championship points in the Hypercar Class. The British brand now seeks to build on this positive momentum with a breakthrough top ten finish on WEC’s return to the six-hour race format, as the championship moves into the ‘flyaway’ event phase of the calendar that shapes the second half of the season.

The first ‘Le Mans Hypercar’ to be produced by Aston Martin, and raced by the Aston Martin THOR Team, Valkyrie is the only car in the WEC’s premier category derived from a road-legal hypercar. Valkyrie is also 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.

Valkyrie made its global debut in the Qatar 1812km in February. The British machine has subsequently demonstrated outstanding reliability, having finished 11 times from 12 starts in all competitions and has solid progression in terms of competitiveness. It has been a consistent points-scorer in all five IMSA races.

The Aston Martin THOR Team will return to its two regular WEC Valkyrie line-ups for the 6 Hours of São Paulo, with the #007 driven by Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell and the #009 of Alex Riberas and Marco Sørensen.

Aston Martin’s Vantage GT3 returns to the frontline of the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT class action this weekend with race victory very much in the crosshairs.

The FIA World Endurance Championship visits Interlagos for only the fifth time in its history, having been reintroduced to the calendar last year. In that period, Vantage has recorded three class wins and four runner-up finishes – including in 2024. The Heart of Racing team and the Racing Spirit of Léman squad aims to add to that tally with the latest iteration – the Vantage GT3 – in the LMGT3 class of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo on 13 July.

Regular class frontrunners, THOR team principal Ian James, Zach Robichon and Mattia Drudi are looking to at least repeat the performance of the #27 Vantage from last year when it finished second in class. Indeed, so far in 2025, the team has recorded a sixth, a fifth and a fourth from four races and based on its pace, a podium is overdue.

THOR will be joined by Racing Spirit of Léman, which introduces a new driver, Anthony McIntosh to its regular line-up of Eduardo Barrichello and Aston Martin works driver Valentin Hasse-Clot in the #10 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. McIntosh comes fresh off the back of a Pro-Am Class podium in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa with Beechdean AMR, while he also races a Vantage with van der Steur Racing in selected IMSA races in the GTD class. McIntosh steps in for his compatriot Derek De Boer, who is otherwise engaged with external commitments, but will return to the car for the next round – the Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the Americas on 5-7 September.

THOR is also in action in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship with the latest version of the Vantage GT3 in the all-GT round of the series at Mosport, in Canada. Fresh off a brilliant, last-gasp win at Watkins Glen last month, the team’s fulltime #27 driver Casper Stevenson is currently second in the standings, just 60 points off the GTD class championship lead. His regular teammate Gamble is otherwise engaged with Valkyrie at Interlagos, so THOR has drafted in IMSA Aston Martin Valkyrie GTP driver and 2022 IMSA GTD champion Roman De Angelis; a two-time GTD class winner of the event.

“The Vantage GT3 continues to go from strength to strength,” said Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport Adam Carter. “It proved to be an outstanding choice for our partner teams in the recent 24 Hours of Spa, where it achieved two class win and another class podium. In IMSA it was victorious in the previous round at Watkins Glen. In WEC, the pace has been there, if not the results. Aston Martin has a strong record at Interlagos, and there is every reason for us to head to São Paulo in an optimistic frame of mind, with a podium finish a very clear target for both of our partner teams.”

Source material - AMR

For the only GTP entry within the field being non-Hybrid, this circuit in theory should have been the worst of all situations for the V12 normally aspirated Aston Martin powered car but in fact, it was the reverse with the car being more than capable of maintaining position with their hybrid-based peers in race form.

Roman De Angelis qualified the #23 car earlier on Friday where at the halfway stage he was running as high as midway within the eleven-car entry before inevitably being pushed back to the bottom by the end of session.

Also starting the hundred-minute sprint race, De Angelis made up early ground before the first of what was only to be two FCY periods during the race (both for debris on track) slowed the proceedings.

Like any street circuit, catching is one thing whilst passing is something completely different and whilst a few others in both GTP and GTD Pro elected to risk significant damage with a last-minute muscle their way through approach, De Angelis ran his short stint before pitting for full service and driver change to Ross Gunn after just thirty minutes on the clock.

Getting up to P9 in class, the race was then interrupted with its second but surprisingly quick FCY despite the class split leaving just under half an hour top the end. Pushing the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing GTP hard, Gunn’s reward finally came after they missed their braking point and had to take to the escape road allowing the #23 car to move up to eighth in class.

Then circulating thirteen seconds behind P7 but over thirty seconds in front of P9, Gunn comfortably brought the #23 car home for its best finish of the IMSA season to date as he and the team now move across to Watkins Glen for some more testing before flying back to France for the Le Mans 24hour Test Day this Sunday.

Photo credits – Team / AMR / social media / Michelin Tyre

Casting our minds back to the action at the Circuit de La Sarthe – that was not really one to remember in the end as the #777 D’Station Racing AMR Vantage LMGT3 of Satoshi Hoshino, Erwan Bastard and Marco Sorenson eventually finished P9 in class after the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GT3 of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli exited the race in the early hours of Sunday morning with that scary image of the car rolling onto its roof after a heavy contact with the tyre wall at Indianapolis.

Thankfully, Mancinelli was otherwise OK as he picked himself out of the wreckage of what was left of his car, and we understand that that chassis has now been replaced and rebuilt (alongside the D’Station Racing car) at the Prodrive facility in time to be flown to Sao Paulo for this weekend’s events.

The crews are already at the circuit preparing both their garages and their cars for the track action that begins on Friday morning with the first of three Free Practice sessions.

The only change so far is the expected swap back from Hoshino within the #777 to that of Clement Mateu as the Frenchman’s deal with the Japanese team was to step aside to allow what later became Hoshino’s final racing visit to the event.

Championship wise, that DNF at Le Mans and a poor finish the round before at Spa Francorchamps has seen their early pace falter as they drop to seventh within the LMGT3 Driver table on half the points of the leader whilst the usual two D’Station drivers (Bastard and Sorenson) now sit in fourth thanks to the double points on offer at Le Mans. They are thirty-three points behind the leading crew.

The Six Hours of Sao Paula starts at 11:30 hours local on Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / Kelvin Pope Firecracker Media

That enforced a delay with the Prologue until early next week and an early morning arrival of their missing shipping containers at the circuit has led to an early start for both teams.

Whilst the Heart of Racing will have run the new 2024 Vantage GT3 (in its IMSA GTD format) at the Rolex 24 earlier this year, this will be the first public running of the ACO LMGT3 variant of the new car and so (especially within the Japanese D’Station Racing team) there will be a whole new lot of ‘new’ going into this year’s WEC operation what with a new car, new drivers, fresh engineering support at what is for the WEC – a new venue!!

The #27 Heart of Racing team head the eighteen strong LMGT3 class by numerical entry number only with the American team returning with their 2023 driver crew again in Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas.

The #777 D’Station Racing team, however, see a complete change as Frenchmen Clement Mateu, Erwan Bastard and Marco Sorensen now make up the driver crew of that entry as team boss Satoshi Hoshino reserves himself for the Le Mans 24 entry and Tomonobu Fujii moves back to in team management role at the circuit.

New cars – new class format means for a new Balance of Performance process within the WEC and whilst that data has already been confirmed by the series, we will just have to wait to see just how that pans out in race format.

Due to these enforced delays, the Prologue timetable will now run to a format of scrutineering and other mandatory safety procedures today (Sunday) before moving into two available track sessions tomorrow (ranging between 210 and 180 minutes in length) before concluding with a final 240-minute session tomorrow. After that – the teams will be preparing themselves for the opening 1812km race next weekend.

Photo credits – Teams / social media