Aston Martin’s Valkyrie AMR-LMH delivered one of its strongest FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) weekends yet at Fuji. Both cars ran at the front for most of the six-hour race and battled with the leading Alpines. However, a late safety car and a few costly mistakes in the closing stages undid their good work, and the team missed out on what would have been its first podium in the Hypercar class.
GT REPORT spoke with Aston Martin’s Alex Riberas and Ian James after the race to get their reactions to the result and what it means for the team going forward.
Alex Riberas: “A bittersweet weekend”
Alex Riberas, driver of the #009 car, put in a strong performance. In the third hour of the race, he battled with Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota, and the Spaniard got the better of the Kiwi with a bold dive up the inside at Turn 10. Riberas told GT REPORT it was an opportunistic move he knew he had to make.
“Brendon [Hartley] was struggling a little bit with his car in those conditions. The track was very delicate because it was raining in some parts of the track, and I felt like I had a bit of a stronger car than the Toyota at that point.
“I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do that. In Turn 10 he defended, but he left a bit of a gap, so I took it and, luckily, it worked.”
Describing the weekend as “bittersweet”, Riberas said it “feels good to be back in the front fighting with the best drivers out there”.
“Today we had the team and the car to be on the podium, but eventually we made a couple mistakes on the team that cost us that top-three finish.”
Looking ahead, Riberas told GT REPORT that Aston Martin, as a young team with limited experience on the grid, is not yet ready to fight Toyota and Ferrari on a consistent basis. That makes weekends like this an important part of the learning process.
“We have to continue to learn and evolve, and the only way to do that is by giving everything we have, making mistakes, learning from them and continuing to grow.”
Ian James: “A day of what could’ve been”
While the GT3 side of the garage celebrated a P2 finish that puts them second in the class standings, Aston Martin THOR Team team principal Ian James described the Valkyrie’s weekend as a day of “what could’ve been”.
“We were in the hunt most of the day. A few little errors, drive-through [penalties] and mistakes in the pit lane took us out of contention there. But it’s a young team, it’s a young programme, and the fact that we’re fighting right there at the front is quite encouraging.”
