Yahoo Autos Heart of Racing confirms 2024 WEC driver lineup
Heart of Racing will make its full-season debt in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024 with a single-car LMGT3 effort with a 2024-spec Aston Martin Vantage crewed by Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas.
The team will campaign the Aston Martin as its No. 27 and will race in the WEC alongside its existing IMSA commitments in both GTD Pro and GTD, together with a ramping up of the testing and development later this year of the Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH Hypercar that it is set to race in both WEC and IMSA competition from the 2025 season.
The full 2024 WEC season comes after a part-season in 2023 when the team took over the preexisting Northwest AMR GTE Am entry after the withdrawal from competition of long-time gentleman racer Paul Dalla Lana.
James, who doubles up again as driver and team principal, will compete in all eight WEC events in 2024 in addition to his role driving in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship endurance events.
“We’re going to continue the way we finished off last season,” said James. “Alex, Dani and myself, I think we make a good team together. We learned a lot last year in WEC and we look forward to continuing that this season and with the introduction of the GT3 class see what we can achieve.”
Riberas will merge his IMSA GTD Pro commitments with the WEC program, however the World Championship will be the priority program in 2024 .
Mario Farnbacher will substitute for Riberas at Spa and Interlagos, where there are clashes with IMSA’s Laguna Seca and CTMP rounds. He will join Ross Gunn on board the team’s GTD PRO entry in place of Riberas for the conflicting events, as well as serving as the third driver during the IMSA endurance races.
