Instead, they intend to focus on recruiting the line-up for the team’s campaigns with the Valkyrie LMH in the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship starting in 2025 from their existing roster of drivers.
That means drivers contracted to Heart of Racing for its campaigns in the two GT Daytona classes in IMSA and GTE Am in WEC, along with the six-strong GT roster on the books of Aston Martin Racing.
Aston Martin head of endurance motorsport Adam Carter replied “they’ve got day jobs” when asked about the possible involvement of either Fernando Alonso, a two-time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours with Toyota, or Lance Stroll in the Valkyrie programme announced on Wednesday.
“We have a good stable within the AMR camp, as in the group within the GT programme,” he said.
“They will be utilised for the initial testing and if they show the correct credentials then they will be given an opportunity to prove themselves.”
Heart of Racing team principal Ian James reiterated Carter’s stance, pointing out that Ferrari and Porsche have successfully promoted drivers from their GT programmes to race their respective LMH and LMDh prototypes.
“We have seen in the Ferrari and Porsche programmes where they have really embraced their GT drivers and it has been very successful for them,” James told Autosport.
“We will look to choose our line-up from the current crop of Heart of Racing and AMR drivers initially, and then we will supplement that as we need to.”
Source: Autosport