FIA World Endurance Championship
The FIA World Endurance Championship is the global stage for modern sports-car endurance racing, built around long-distance events such as Spa, Fuji, Bahrain and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2026, WEC’s provisional entry list features 17 Hypercars and 18 LMGT3 cars, with Aston Martin THOR Team running two Valkyrie Hypercars: #007 and #009. The Valkyrie is also noted on the FIA WEC entry list as the only Hypercar not using a hybrid system.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.
FIA World Endurance Championship - Season So Far
Aston Martin’s 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship story is now beginning to gather real shape across both fronts: the Valkyrie Hypercar programme with Aston Martin THOR Team, and the Heart of Racing Team’s Vantage AMR LMGT3 entries.
The opening completed round at Imola gave the Valkyrie programme an important early marker, with the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble finishing ninth and earning its first WEC points after running inside the top ten for much of the six-hour race. The sister #009 Valkyrie, driven by Marco Sørensen and Alex Riberas, finished 14th after a difficult weekend that included a prologue incident and a replacement chassis being prepared before practice.
Spa-Francorchamps then delivered the clearest sign yet of the Valkyrie’s progress. The #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie finished fourth overall, Aston Martin’s best FIA WEC result so far with the Valkyrie Hypercar. It wasn’t simply a case of surviving a chaotic race, either. The #007 car finished only a few seconds away from the overall win and just outside the podium, with Tom Gamble passing the #7 Toyota in the closing laps to secure fourth. For a programme still building experience in one of the most competitive Hypercar fields in world motorsport, Spa felt like a significant step forward.
The #009 Valkyrie showed encouraging pace during the Spa weekend too, including Marco Sørensen’s strong qualifying performance, but its race ended in disappointment after a late incident and it wasn’t classified. That keeps the weekend in perspective, but it doesn’t take away from the scale of the #007 result.
In LMGT3, Heart of Racing’s season has also begun to move forward. At Imola, the #23 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 of Gray Newell, Kobe Pauwels and Jonny Adam finished ninth and scored points, while the #27 Vantage AMR LMGT3 of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi showed stronger potential before suspension failure forced an early retirement.
Spa brought a much stronger reward for the #27 crew, with the Heart of Racing Vantage finishing second in LMGT3 after a post-race penalty reshuffled the class result. The sister #23 Vantage finished 13th, leaving the team with one podium-level result and one more difficult race from the Belgian weekend.
After Spa, Aston Martin sits fourth in the FIA Hypercar manufacturers’ championship on 14 points, with the #007 crew of Tincknell and Gamble ninth in the Hypercar drivers’ standings on the same total. In LMGT3, the #27 Heart of Racing Team entry has climbed to sixth in the teams’ standings on 18 points, while the #23 entry sits 12th on two points.
The next round is the biggest test of the season: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Aston Martin arrives there with the Valkyrie’s best WEC result yet, a fresh LMGT3 podium, and a clearer sense that both programmes are beginning to build momentum, while still needing consistency across both cars to turn promising weekends into sustained championship progress.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.
6 Hours of Spa
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps | 9 May 2026
Aston Martin’s FIA World Endurance Championship weekend at Spa delivered the clearest sign yet of the Valkyrie Hypercar programme’s progress. The #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie finished fourth overall, while Heart of Racing added a second-place LMGT3 result with the #27 Vantage AMR LMGT3.
Hypercar — Aston Martin Focus
| Pos | Car | Drivers | Team | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie | Harry Tincknell / Tom Gamble | Aston Martin THOR Team | Best WEC finish yet |
| NC | #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie | Alex Riberas / Marco Sørensen | Aston Martin THOR Team | Not classified after late incident |
LMGT3 — Aston Martin Focus
| Pos | Car | Drivers | Team | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 | Ian James / Zacharie Robichon / Mattia Drudi | Heart of Racing Team | LMGT3 podium |
| 13 | #23 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 | Gray Newell / Eduardo Barrichello / Jonny Adam | Heart of Racing Team | Finished outside points |
Championship Standings
Aston Martin focus after the first two rounds of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Hypercar Manufacturers
| Pos | Manufacturer | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BMW | 59 |
| 2 | Toyota | 52 |
| 3 | Ferrari | 42 |
| 4 | Aston Martin | 14 |
| 5 | Alpine | 14 |
| 6 | Peugeot | 9 |
| 7 | Cadillac | 8 |
| 8 | Genesis | 6 |
Hypercar Drivers — Aston Martin Focus
| Pos | Car | Drivers | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | #007 | Harry Tincknell / Tom Gamble | 14 |
| 20 | #009 | Alex Riberas / Marco Sørensen | 0 |
LMGT3 Teams — Aston Martin Focus
| Pos | Car | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | #27 | Heart of Racing Team | 18 |
| 12 | #23 | Heart of Racing Team | 2 |
Standings shown after Round 2 of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.
Round 01 - 6 Hours of Imola 2026
The 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship opened at Imola with Toyota taking overall victory in Hypercar. The #8 Toyota Racing GR010 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa won the six-hour race, ahead of the #51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi. The #7 Toyota completed the Hypercar podium.
For Aston Martin, Imola was not a breakthrough result, but it was a meaningful opening step for the Valkyrie Hypercar programme. The #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble finished ninth overall and ninth in Hypercar, one lap down, scoring the programme’s first WEC points. The sister #009 Valkyrie of Alex Riberas and Marco Sørensen finished 14th overall, also one lap down.
The #007 result mattered because it gave Aston Martin something solid to build from at the very first round. Heart of Racing’s own post-race notes recorded that the #007 car started 12th, reached as high as seventh, completed 212 of 213 laps, and ran in the top ten for much of the race before finishing ninth. Tom Gamble described it as a “pretty positive start to the season” and said the team was “night-and-day better” compared with where it had been at Imola the previous year.
The #009 car had a more complicated lead-in to the weekend. After an incident in the Tuesday prologue, the crew prepared a new chassis in time for Friday practice. In the race, Riberas and Sørensen started 14th, finished 14th, reached a highest position of 10th, and completed the same 212 laps as the sister Valkyrie. Sørensen felt there were positives to take despite the result, while Riberas pointed to Imola not being the best circuit for the car but still described the weekend as a significant step forward.
In LMGT3, Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 entries had a mixed afternoon. The #23 car of Gray Newell, Kobe Pauwels and Jonny Adam finished ninth in class, scoring two championship points after Adam moved into the top ten in the final hour. The #27 car of Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi was classified 17th after a suspension failure forced an early retirement, having run as high as eighth.
From a Fuel the Passion perspective, Imola was best understood as a measured but encouraging start. The Valkyrie did not yet look like an outright Hypercar contender, but the #007 reached the points on merit, the #009 recovered from a difficult build-up to complete the race, and the #23 Vantage added further points in LMGT3. The story here is not triumph; it is credibility, mileage and early progress in a programme that still needs time to mature.
FTP Summary Line
Aston Martin’s WEC season began with a measured but useful result at Imola. The #007 Valkyrie scored the programme’s first WEC points with ninth in Hypercar, the #009 reached the finish after a disrupted build-up, and the #23 Heart of Racing Vantage added points in LMGT3. It was not a headline breakthrough, but it was a credible first step.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.
Round 02 - TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps
The second round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship delivered Aston Martin’s strongest Hypercar result so far, as the #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble finished fourth overall in the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
BMW M Team WRT claimed a one-two finish at the front, with the #20 BMW winning ahead of the sister #15 BMW, while the #50 Ferrari AF Corse completed the overall podium. Just behind them, the #007 Valkyrie came home fourth, ahead of the #7 Toyota, in what official timing confirmed as a very closely packed finish at the front.
For Aston Martin, the #007 result was the story of the weekend. This was not simply a case of inheriting a finish through attrition. RACER reported that Tom Gamble passed Kamui Kobayashi’s #7 Toyota late in the race to secure fourth, giving the result proper competitive weight as well as championship value.
The margin also tells its own story. The #007 Valkyrie finished just 5.004 seconds away from the race-winning BMW and a little over two seconds from the podium. For a programme still early in its second WEC season, and still building race-by-race knowledge of the Valkyrie in Hypercar competition, Spa felt like a meaningful step forward.
The sister #009 Valkyrie had shown strong pace across the Spa weekend, including Marco Sørensen’s confidence-building qualifying performance, but its race ended in disappointment. The official classification lists the car as not classified after 136 laps, leaving Aston Martin with one standout Hypercar result and one reminder that consistency across both cars is still part of the next stage of development.
There was also a very strong Aston Martin result in LMGT3. The #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3, driven by Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi, finished second in class in the final classification. RACER reported that the #10 Garage 59 McLaren was promoted to the LMGT3 win after the #21 Ferrari received a five-second penalty, with the #27 Aston Martin classified second.
The second Heart of Racing entry, the #23 Vantage AMR LMGT3 of Gray Newell, Eduardo Barrichello and Jonny Adam, finished 13th in class. It wasn’t the result that side of the garage would’ve wanted, but with the #27 taking second, Spa still became Heart of Racing’s strongest WEC weekend of the season so far.
For Fuel the Passion, the wider reading is clear. Spa wasn’t a perfect Aston Martin weekend, but it was an important one. The Valkyrie now has a fourth-place WEC finish to its name, achieved at one of the world’s great endurance circuits and secured with a late on-track move against Toyota. Add in a second-place LMGT3 result for Heart of Racing, and Aston Martin heads towards Le Mans with its most encouraging WEC evidence of 2026 so far.
Result snapshot:
FTP Summary Line
Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Hypercar programme delivered its best FIA WEC result yet at Spa, with the #007 car finishing fourth overall, while Heart of Racing added a second-place LMGT3 finish with the #27 Vantage AMR LMGT3.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.
Image © Aston Martin Lagonda. Used for editorial purposes.