At least time around, they will have class competition as the #222 Scott Taylor Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R has also been confirmed.

Previously more familiar with the Radical, Porsche GT and single seater formulae, the New South Wales team embark upon a new direction into the topflight national SRO Series in time for their next round from Queensland Raceway in early August. The team hope to give the car a quick shakedown test as early at this Friday 

Imported still in its 16A format, the car is due to be upgraded to the new 2024 evolutionary format as soon as parts land at their workshop as that, together with confirmation of their expected Pro-Am line up will be made later.

This car doubles the AMR powered line up within the series as Mike Bailey’s older generation V12 Vantage GT3 presently competes within its trophy class.

“To join Aston Martin Racing as a Partner Team is the most exciting thing we’ve done in our time in GT racing,” said Papadopoulos. 

“The Vantage GT3 is everything you want in a racing car. Not only has AMR done a fantastic job with everything they’ve added to make it a great race car, but they’ve started from a pretty sensational road car!

“Aston Martin is as serious about racing performance as we are, so it’s been a great fit for us, and they’ve really welcomed us into the fold from a car ownership and technical perspective.

“I think it’s fair to say every race fan has missed seeing an Aston Martin in the outright fight in Australia, so we couldn't be more proud to be the team taking Aston Martin back to the topflight here” said Chris Papadopoulos, Director Volante Rosso Motorsport with the announcement of their AMR Partner team status.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media

That’s news confirms the return of both Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas aboard the #23 GTD Pro entry alongside that of Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorenson aboard the #27 GTD entry but this time with Mario Farnbacher joining the #23 and Zacherie Robichan joining the #27 crew (alongside Team Manager Ian James) in the Endurance rounds.

However, with every action there comes an equal an opposite reaction (someone famous was once reported to have said) and that comes in the form of Charlie Eastwood confirming his departure from the Aston Martin Racing factory drivers roster to join the Corvette Racing LMGT3 entry with TF Sport within next seasons FIA World Drivers Championship.

On top of that, we also saw news today that the part-time Jarret Andretti / Gabby Chaves Andretti Autosport IMSA GTD entry of this season will change from his AMR Vantage GTD to the Porsche 911 GT3 for next season.

Photo credits - Teams / J Price Photo / A Lofthouse

Free Practice one again saw both the #27 Heart car of Roman De Angelis / Marco Sorenson and the #94 Andretti car of Jared Andretti / Gabby Chaves apparently struggle with set up and pace whilst the #23 Heart car of Ross Gunn / Alex Riberas appeared equally underwhelming. That didn’t change much as the grid progressed through Free Practice two.

Qualifying again saw the #23 car of Riberas continue with its P4 in GTD Pro class positioning whilst the #27 car of De Angelis did at least hold onto a higher place during the early laps of the session to eventually qualifying in P6. Andretti meanwhile was qualified P14, presumably hoping that he would make it through to the end of his stint for the first time this season.

Going into yesterday’s two hours forty-minute race became something of a scrappy affair for the prototypes up front as contact at turn 1/lap 1 brought out an early Safety Car for debris with everyone losing ten minutes of race time to that clean up exercise.

The early laps saw an amateur driver leading the entire GTD Pro and GTD field on pace alone as the BMW M4 GT3 again showed off its dominance but whilst the prototypes grabbed all the camera angles, both Heart cars had moved up to P4 within both of their respected classes.

With just over forty minutes gone, both Heart cars pitted for the first time with De Angelis just taking fuel and tyres whilst the #23 did the same and swapped out Riberas for Gunn. That move also came just before another FCY as a P2 car was left broadside across the track at the final corner onto the start straight.

Despite that car being able to get going again, the race would be neutralised for an incredible twenty-five minutes as Race Control toyed with the overall running order and wave arounds! During that time the #94 Andretti car had also pitted for full service and a driver change that allowed Chaves to run her first actual laps of her brief AMR powered season so far having seen the car eliminated from the race in the early stages during their two previous showings.

Once the race went back to green however, the benefit of pitting before the Safety Car became truly apparent for the Heart team as both cars elevated themselves up to P2 for the #23 car and P1 in GTD for the #27. The #94 would however, just retain their previous P12 position.

As the race encroached into its final hour, the #23 car of Gunn had slipped back to P3 in GTD Pro but was at least still in visual range of the car in front with a healthy gap to the car behind whilst the #27 car (now with Sorenson aboard) slipped down to P4 but with tighter gaps front and rear but with many cars playing the championship long game, it was clear that the GTD Pro leading Lexus would not be challenging Gunn too hard for the final step of the podium this time around.

Eventually the chequered flag fell, and it was another P2 podium for the #23 car of Gunn and Riberas whilst the #27 car was unable to haul themselves back up beyond their P4 running position. The #94 would also finish their first IMSA race for a credible P12 position.

Championship wise, it’s all a bit too late for the Heart team in both GTD Pro and GTD as the points deficit for each crew within the overall Champiosnhip standing as well as the Sprint Cup for the #27 car all too great now to overcome with the points still available.

Photo credits – Team / social media / J Price Photo

This weekend sees the Heart of Racing team back within the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship paddock for the penultimate round of the 2023 season from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with their two AMR Vantage GTD entries alongside that (confirmed this time) of the #94 Andretti Autosport Vantage GTD.

As usual, Gunn and Riberas will battle it out within GTD Pro with their #23 car whilst Roman de Angelis and Marco Sorenson do likewise within their #27 GTD class car with Jarett Andretti and Gabby Chaves hopefully being able to make it along to the end within their #94 car.

Last seen out at VIR at the end of August the teams great string of recent results within both classes was thwarted with a negative BoP adjustment against the car that saw both crews struggle to eventually come home well down the collective GTD Pro and GTD only pecking order.

Whilst that result has left the #23 crew a massive 391 in arrears to the class leader (and effectively out of contention back in P5), the #27 crew find themselves a similar points distant behind (375) but they still retain a P2 position within the standing, so any incident involving the pace setting BMW crew of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow would work in the favour.

This weekend also sees the Championship return to its multi-class format as all five classes return to do battle around the iconic American circuit layout of the bank oval and its infield circuit. Friday and Saturday see the Free Practice and Qualifying sessions with the two-hour forty minute race starting 13:10hrs local on Sunday.

Photo credits – Team / Series / J Price

Three podiums including two race wins on the bounce later for the #23 Heart of Racing AMR crew of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas has seen the series take action to ‘redress’ an apparent imbalance between the Aston Martin against its rivals equipment.

That is of course rotten luck for the crew after the results from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Lime Rock and most recently from Road America has seen that GTD Pro crew elevate themselves back into contention within the class after something of a poor start in fifth in the Championship but still some 342-points back from the untethered Lexus with three rounds (including VIR) remaining.

Also running will be the twenty strong GTD class only event will be the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage GTD of Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorenson who also enjoyed class winning success of their own in recent events but not at Road America where they had to settle for a P7 in class finish.

These results sees last season’s champion (De Angelis) and Sorenson drop to second within the drivers table with a 206-point deficit to the BMW M4 GTD crew of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellars with (again) three rounds remaining.

The championship positions for both Heart crews made the result of VIR round pivotable to their respective Championship chances before the season runs itself out at both Indianapolis and Road Atlanta.

Again listed within the provisional entry list this week, sees the #94 Andretti Autosport AMR Vantage GTD of Jarred Andretti and Gabby Chaves also for VIR but they too were also listed for Road America when they didn’t actually run so we will wait to see with them.

Photo credits – Team / Series / J Price

The main IMSA series sees all five classes return for this round after the GTD only round from Lime Rock Park where the two Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD’s took both overall (GTD Pro) and class wins (GTD) between them but at the cost of sadly another DNF for the returning Andretti Autosport Aston.

This weekend sees all three AMR’s return for this weekend’s two hour’s forty-minute race starting on Sunday morning (local time) with both #23 Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas and #27 Roman De Angelis/Marco Sorenson all eager as mustard to get back into the point winning ways having each maxed out in upstate New York, closing the deficit in their respective championships to those in front.

For the #94 Andretti car of Jarret Andretti and Gabby Chaves, it will be a case of third time lucky having suffered similar fates in both opening IMSA visits so far at both Lime Rock and before that at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Whilst the Michelin Pilot Challenge skipped Lime Rock Park completely two weeks ago, it returns this weekend back into its usual state with both GS and TCR classed cars competing within the scheduled forty-six car entry and with six Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered crews competing within the twenty-four strong GS class.

The usual suspects from Van der Steur (#19 Rory Van Der Steur/Austin McCusker), Team TGM with both (#46 Hugh/Matt Plumb) and (#64 Ted Giovanis/Owen Trinkler), the #44 Accelerating Performance AMR of Moisey Uretsky/Michael Cooper and the #88 Archangel Aston Martin of Todd Coleman/Billy Johnson all return for another two hour round but will this time be re-joined again by the #09 Automatic Stoner Car Care entry of Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi.

The Stoner crew returned to the IMSA series at Lime Rock for their first race within the VP Fuels Sportscar Challenge Series where Ecklin came away with a brace of Bronze Cup trophies for his efforts.

This series two-hour race starts later at 15.55hrs local.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / J Price

 

 

The victory was an emotional one for the team, which did an incredible job to build-up and ship a brand new #23 Vantage GT3 to Lime Rock in less than a fortnight, following Gunn’s high-speed accident in the previous round at Mosport when a rival made contact with the Briton. The crash underlined a sequence of misfortune for the GTD Pro entry, but Saturday’s victory emphasised the pace and competitiveness that has been present all season. 

“We needed this win,” said Gunn. “The team deserves it after all the hard work we’ve put in, especially after the past two weeks, and this one is for all the guys that spent so much time in the workshop building up a new car. It’s proof of how resilient this team is. We’ve had the pace all-season long but we’ve been searching for a clean race, when everything fell into place and it’s happened here. The Vantage was awesome in qualifying and I knew, if we carried that pace into the race we were going to be strong. I’m very happy for Heart of Racing and Aston Martin, and my team-mate Alex, and I know that we can win again this season if we can take this momentum on into Road America.”

The Rolex 24 at Daytona GTD class winners – reigning champion Roman De Angelis (CAN) and co-driver LMGTE Am world champion Marco Sørensen (DEN) – driving the #27 Vantage GT3, recorded HoR and Vantage’s tenth win since introducing the car to the IMSA series fulltime in 2020. 

It was the first victory for the #27 since Daytona and was achieved after the car took the lead in the second hour, following a penalty for the championship-leading BMW. Sørensen then soaked up the pressure from two Porsches to see out the win. The victory brings the crew within 86 points of regaining the GTD class lead with four races to go in 2023.

It was the second GTD class win for Heart of Racing at Lime Rock, with the team having finished no lower than second in the last three years on the 1.5-mile circuit. The triumph also marks its second IMSA double – the first having come at Watkins Glen in 2022.

“This was another new circuit for me to learn this year, and I think it went well!” said Sørensen. “It’s a great challenge to learn all these circuits in the US. The team did another fantastic job with the strategy and the Vantage is always competitive in IMSA. We were a little lucky, and it was unfortunate for the team that got the penalty, but we’ve had our fair share of bad luck as well this season and these things often work out that way. Now we have closed the gap in the championship it’s time to turn-up the pressure and chase the title in the last four races of the year.”

Heart of Racing team principal Ian James, said: “What a day for Heart of Racing and Aston Martin. To take victory in both classes here at Lime Rock is an amazing accomplishment and down to the outstanding pit stops by the crew and faultless performance by the drivers. Racing brings highs and lows; this is one of the good days.”

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship now moves on to Road America, for the IMSA Sportscar weekend, 3-6 August.

Source Material - AMR
Photo Credits - J Price / Team / IMSA / Michelin

The resulting spin saw his #23 GTD Pro car that he shares with Alex Riberas nose heavily into the tyre protected crash barrier before rebounded out again with extensive from end damage. Unlike the #23 car, Gunn was otherwise OK for that experience although he was ‘sore’ in places for the next couple of days.

That gave the Heart of Racing team little time to ready both the #23 and #27 AMR GTD car of Roman De Angelis/Marco Sorenson ahead of this weekend’s GTD only round around the small but perfectly formed Lime Rock Park circuit.

Yesterday’s Qualifying saw Gunn place his #23 onto out right pole position, beating his class by just 0.191 of a second around the 1.4-mile circuit.

In GTD, the #23 car couldn’t replicate the success of CTMP when De Angelis claimed class pole position there, but they will be starting todays 100 minute from the second row of the GTD grid in P4 whilst the #94 Andretti Motorsport AMR of Jarrett Andretti and Gabby Chaves start P12.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / J Price

Also competing amongst the GTD only event will be the return of the #94 Andretti Autosport AMR Vantage GTD of Jarett Andretti and Gabby Chaves. Not seen within their Aston Martin since their ill-fated debut with the car at Laguna Seca where Andretti was taken out of the race by a racing room deficient prototype.

After that and a hard hit into the tyre wall for the #23 car of Ross Gunn at CTMP, hopefully this weekend’s results will mirror those of last year too!

Then in Michelin Pilot Challenge – there will be no GS class cars at all as the TCR class get the race all to themselves as the GT4 based cars did likewise earlier in the year at Detroit.

Rounding off the weekend will be a further two races within the new for 2023 VP Fuels Sportscar Challenge Series where we do not see the usual Aston Martin Racing attendees of Todd Coleman and Moisey Uretsky aboard their usual Archangel and Accelerating performance prepared GSX class cars – but we do see the #09 Stoner Car Care Aston Martin Vantage GT4 of Rob Ecklin hit the series for the first time.

A long-time advocate of the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series, the Automatic Racing prepared crew have been going something ‘off piste’ this season in lieu of just another year within the IMSA sanctioned series, doing what they like – where and when and this is just another example of it.

Racing for all the three IMSA series around the tight and twisty 1.5-mile circuit will be fast and furious for as long as the Safety Car cab be kept within pit lane. We wish them all well.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / J Price

Also featuring within the GTD grid of thirty-eight cars were the #44 AMR from the Magnus Racing team as John Potter and Andy Lally looked for seat time ahead of the Championship’s next round of the Endurance Cup at Watkins Glen at the end of June as well as the first competitive running of the new #94 Andretti Autosport AMR of Jarrett Andretti and Gabby Chaves. These latter two crews would struggle during early track sessions and qualifying to start the race from the rear in P16 and P13 respectively.

With Sunday’s race programme being disrupted by untimely morning fog, early morning warm up eventually got underway but with Race Control having to remain somewhat ‘fluid’ to keep the schedule on track ahead of its afternoon live TV slot.

Competing within a field of GTP and LMP2 cars, the staggered grid eventually got away with the #27 car of De Angelis picking off a car to grab P2 overall in class by the exit of the first corner whilst Riberas maintained his position. Early contact between two GTD’s within the mid-field brought out the Safety Car with only two minutes race time on the clock but once the race went back to green, the #94 car of Andretti would be seen recovering from an unchallenged spin.

However, just a further ten minutes into their Aston Martin/IMSA debut, the #94 would then be seen getting a nudge from a passing GTP that would send the American heavily into the tyre wall at pit entrance – bringing out the Safety Car again and bringing about their immediate retirement as well. Thankfully Andretti was otherwise unhurt but at least he would be cleared of any wrongdoing as the #7 Porsche would be later sanctioned by Race Control.

With the pit lane opening this time, both Heart cars pitted for tyres and fuel but dropped track position as a consequence as the third Safety Car was called at the hour mark for an LMP2 car in the gravel and tyre wall.

By the time the race went back to green this time around, the #23 car of Riberas had now claimed top position in GTD Pro, with the #27 car in P8 and with the #44 car upon the cusp of a top ten position in GTD.

Just over an hour to go and all three remaining Aston Martin cars pitted for the final time as Gunn took over the #23, Sorensen the #27 and (slightly earlier) Lally the #44 cars.

Ten minutes later, another Safety Car for a stricken GTD Pro car at the final corner. What happened next was extremely ‘odd’ as the #23 car was seen to be driving extremely slowly to a point of cars behind deciding whether to pass it or not within the ongoing Safety Car train! What that turned out to be was the first inklings of a mistake from the Heart team in getting the #23 car to pass on the wave around – incorrectly it then transpired with the slowing an attempt to make amends for that pit wall error.

Unfortunately for the #23 car, that error came with a mighty price as Gunn was soon instructed to park up for a stop and hold that would lose them the class lead and two further laps as a consequence.

That left little over half an hour for the #44 car to maintain its GTD class lead after having unassumingly taken that position despite being listed as visiting pit lane five times over the usual three from their peers around them. As the laps counted down, the tyre degradation was beginning to show and one by one, the four cars stacked up behind Lally passed his car for position.

Having battled it hard to the end, the #44 car would finish just off the GTD podium in forth whilst the #27 had never recovered from the second Safety Car period to finish a disappointed P8 with the #23 being relegated to last in class after being passed by the equally culpable Corvette in the dying stages of the race.

With now just over a month until the next round at Watkins Glen, that gives the teams enough time to analyse what exactly went on at Laguna Seca and prepare themselves for the next round!

Photo credits – Jamie Price / Teams / AMR