WEC | Sørensen: “Aston easier now, but it's all unpredictable”

Aston Martin will present itself at the start of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship with a brand new weapon for the 2024 season.

This is not yet the Valkyrie Hypercar, which we will see making its debut in the series in 12 months, but the newborn Vantage GT3, a car that will be brought to its debut in the World Championship by the D'Station Racing and The Heart of Racing teams in the LMGT3 Class.

With the #777 of the Japanese team there will be the official Marco Sørensen, Erwan Bastard and Clément Mateu, while the drivers of the American team are Alex Riberas, Daniel Mancinelli and Ian James; both teams will enjoy the support of Prodrive, AMR's official reference team.

Sørensen himself spoke at the press meeting organized by the WEC in which Motorsport.com took part, explaining that the English brand has very high motivations for this commitment.

“It was a busy winter because we had to work a lot on the new car, which made its debut in a real race at Daytona. Since it was just born, there were a couple of small problems that we will still have to work on, but I'm sure that Qatar is a better track for her,” says the Dane.

“And then it was very nice that GT3 was presented together with Formula 1, it better represents the even closer bond that the two have and we hope to obtain positive results on the track.”

There is no need to rush, however, because the car is still relatively new and some time will still be needed to extract its maximum potential, even if the construction conditions are encouraging.

“The name EVO is actually not accurate because basically it is a completely new car and the only part that is the same as in the past is the steering wheel. For the rest, everything has changed and there are various things that have been made more efficient.”

“What we worked on the most is making it simpler to drive, in order to have greater margin of action and better functioning of everything when you get to new tracks, as we will have on the calendar this year.”

“With the old GT3 we often struggled to find the right solutions, while now we have already seen that there are notable improvements from this point of view with the new car, which is decidedly easier to drive.”

“There are still several things to understand and a way to go, as is normal when you have a new car, but I expect it to already be at the top.”

#27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo: Roman De Angelis, Zacharie Robichon, Ian James, Marco Sorensen

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

With the transition to just two categories, there will be many more GTs on the track and this will make the battle for success even more exciting, also counting on the presence of Bronze drivers making their debut who still have experience on this type of machine, which makes any prediction practically impossible.

“The driver market, if you can call it that, has opened up even more with this rule and several of the new arrivals have already been used to driving GT3s for some time. In this way the lineups between the various teams have also diversified and I honestly don't know what to expect, we'll have to see how it goes in Qatar.”

“In the past there weren't as many GTs as there are today and I think the biggest change in having closer races is due to the fact that the cars have become a little easier for the gentlemen drivers to drive, as they now have the 'ABS; they can probably be at a higher level straight away.”

“When it's the Silver, Gold or Platinum drivers' turn, I think the whole grid will be much closer. Obviously it's nice not to have so much traffic, because in the past the LMP2s had to slow down a lot to let the Hypercars pass, and it was a big casino!”

Aston Martin Vantage GT3

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

“The more the LMP2s slowed down, the more they bothered the GT cars. This year there are so many different variables and it's not just the fact that we will lose the LMP2s. Now there is ABS and I think we will see more fights and contacts because everyone they will be able to brake late. All this kind of thing gives a different feel to the race.”

“Due to the new BoP system, with the sensor installed on the transmission shaft, I believe there will be very close races among the GTs and my dream is that we can fight like crazy in every race until the last hour. I am very curious to see what will happen, we will certainly have to adapt at the beginning, but I think they will be good races.”