The Heart of Racing will expand into IMSA’s GTD PRO class for the 2022 season, in addition to re-entering the championship’s GTD class for their third consecutive year.
The #23 GTD Pro car will be driven by Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn in the full championship, joined by Maxime Martin as #23’s third driver in the endurance races.
The #27 GTD car will be driven by Roman De Angelis all season, with Tom Gamble, Darren Turner, and Ian James making up the car’s Daytona 24hr lineup. Maxime Martin will join De Angelis in the #27 for IMSA’s sprint cup races.
The program’s 2021 IMSA lineup consisted of Ross Gunn, Roman De Angelis, and Ian James in the #23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. In September, Heart of Racing added a second GT3 car to the mix where Alex Riberas re-joined the lineup to test the team’s ability to run two cars. This feat foreshadowed today’s announcement confirming two Heart of Racing cars in the upcoming season.
“After the momentum and lessons we learnt in 2021 we are ready to expand the adventure, the obvious next step for our program was to expand into the new IMSA GTD PRO class,” said team principal Ian James. “We are excited to push our limits as a team and continue to challenge ourselves against the best teams and drivers.”
The Heart of Racing is a charity racing team competing to support Seattle Children’s Hospital. The 2021 IMSA WeatherTech Sprint Cup Champions are proud to enter their third season as an Aston Martin Racing partner team.
Aston Martin then joins confirmed full season GTD Pro efforts from Corvette, Lexus (Vasser Sullivan), Porsche (Pfaff), and BMW (2 x BMW Team RLL) with a further GTD Pro entry for Lamborghini from T3 Racing, A Porsche from KCMG, and a second factory Corvette already confirmed for the season opener at Daytona and other teams (and marques) set to be confirmed shortly.
