As the resident newcomer to both the WEC’s Hypercar class and IMSA’s GTP competition, Aston Martin is realistic about what 2025 holds in store–a lot of learning in pursuit of at least a little improvement.
Having its Valkyrie AMR-LMH in both series offers advantages of more practice, qualifying and race laps to compile data and gain experience. Even better, the cars are fielded by the same team: The Heart of Racing (THOR). Perhaps most beneficial of all–some THOR personnel are working both series, including drivers Ross Gunn, Roman De Angelis, and Alex Riberas.
Gunn and De Angelis will share full-season duties in the THOR No. 23 Valkyrie in IMSA, which makes its North American race debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring March 15. Riberas, who has a full-time ride in one of THOR’s WEC Valkyries, is the third driver at Sebring.
The iconic half-day race will be the trio’s second event behind the wheel of the screaming V12-powered prototype, following the WEC season debut at Qatar’s Lusail International Circuit.
At Lusail, De Angelis and Riberas shared the 009 with Marco Sørensen, finishing 17th after battling a few issues, including a departed door. The 007 sister car, with Tom Gamble, Harry Tincknell and Gunn behind the wheel, retired with a transmission issue.
The results were mostly forgettable, but the experience will prove valuable.
“I think having very recent race experience is going to help,” Gunn said. “There is some crossover of staff between the two programs. There’s going to be lots of information helping the two programs throughout the year. Everything that we learn from each series is going to have a direct [benefit] for the other series, and that is really, really important for our progression.”
Same Car, (Very) Different Circuits
While Gunn sees THOR applying lessons from Lusail to the IMSA season opener, car set-up will not be among them.
“They couldn’t be two more different tracks,” Gunn said. “Qatar is very high grip, smooth and has longer, faster corners. Sebring is obviously bumpy.”
The different layouts, surfaces, and grip also translate to different tire degradation rates, with Sebring going much harder on rubber. “So there isn’t that much of a crossover in terms of actual car setup,” Gunn said.
After finishing at the back of the 18-car Hypercar pack in the WEC opener, THOR’s aspirations for Sebring are realistic. The primary goal: finish the race.
While that goes without saying for any team eyeing a win, just taking the checkered flag in an endurance race is a major achievement for a newcomer.
“We were able to achieve that [in Qatar] with the 009 car, but unfortunately, the car that I was driving, we didn’t,” Gunn said. “To finish first, first you have to finish. For now, we’re really, really working hard to make sure that by the end of [Sebring] we’ll at least have a finish. Hopefully we’ll have some sort of pace during the race that is contending with the people that have been doing it for a few years already.”
Consistency Is King
In Qatar, the Valkyrie struggled to keep pace with its peers on shorter runs. At Sebring, Gunn was slowest among the 12 GTP cars that attempted to qualify.
But Gunn felt the car’s performance at Qatar improved as laps added up, and is hoping for a similar trend in Florida.
“Our strength has been our long-run pace,” Gunn said. “In Qatar, it was quite clear that maybe on the one lap, we were further away than we were on the long-run pace. That was definitely something that was pretty positive.”
IMSA’s schedule gives THOR eight races to learn, apply lessons, and improve. Sebring is easily the most challenging from here on out. In a perfect world, the No. 23’s path would make it just another GTP class combatant by the Motul Petit Le Mans season finale.
“A successful season for us would be to be, by the end of the year, challenging the establishment,” Gunn said. “But there’s so much work ahead of us to get to that level. If you can get through to Sebring, then you can…get through any race. Having this challenge quite early on in our program is really, really important.”
Thanks as always for reading and sharing. And if you’re on Instagram, check out my main man behind the shutter, @Muckygit, who provided all the photos direct from Sebring. He insists he’s no pro, but you wouldn’t know it from his shots!
