Lakeville, Conn. (22 July 2023) – A fast Friday at Lime Rock Park saw the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin set a new track record as Ross Gunn posted a 50.593-second flier on the 1.47-mile circuit to score pole position for Saturday’s GT-only IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race (USA Network live at 12:00 PM ET).
After an incident at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park left the previous chassis undriveable, the Heart of Racing squad were able to prepare a brand-new chassis for the Lime Rock Park round. That hard work paid immediate dividends as Gunn and co-driver Alex Riberas posted the third fastest lap of the opening practice session and backed that up with the fifth quickest time in the final practice.
The team made the strategic call to hold Gunn in the pit box as the qualifying session went green, looking to match the timing to find some open track to go along with the improving track conditions. Gunn made the most of it, netting the fast time on his sixth lap before returning to pit lane to collect the first Motul Pole Award of the season for the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
“It’s super to be on pole, especially at a track like this where it’s very tricky to pass,” said Gunn. “Not only that, but we have had some bad luck over the course of the season. It’s nice to be able to reward the guys after what happened at Mosport, they had a really quick turnaround to get the new chassis here and they’ve done an amazing job. To be honest I owe all of it to them because they’re the guys that do the long hours and we’re the lucky ones that get to drive. This qualifying session was a bit unexpected. We were struggling a bit in practice for overall pace, but we made a couple of setup changes before that really worked well. I left it all out on the track and was really happy with it.”
The No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin team with Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorensen secured a fourth place starting position in GTD competition. After fighting to find the ideal setup in both of Friday’s practice sessions, De Angelis qualified the Aston Martin with a 51.283-second lap. The Canadian ace has a remarkable record of success at the diminutive Connecticut circuit, and will look to translate the strong qualifying effort into a return to the Lime Rock Park podium on Saturday.
“I don’t think we optimized our qualifying session,” said De Angelis. “We tried a bunch of different setups throughout the weekend and put something together for qualifying that worked really well. I don’t think I adapted quickly enough to the new setup. We will start fourth in class tomorrow, so not too bad, but it should make for an interesting race tomorrow. We know the Aston is quick with Ross scoring pole, so we will see what happens.”
The FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix presented by Liqui Moly will take the green flag at 12:10pm ET on Saturday with live coverage on USA Network starting at noon ET.
About The Heart of Racing
The Heart of Racing races to raise funds and awareness for Seattle Children’s Cardiology Research. The team competes internationally with concurrent campaigns in IMSA, SRO, Formula Drift and the 24H SERIES. Last season The Heart of Racing won the IMSA GTD Championship title in the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The Heart of Racing team hosted their first all-female driver shootout in November of 2022, bringing to the team Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt for the 2023 SRO GT4 America season. To contribute to The Heart of Racing’s fundraising efforts please visit: https://give.seattlechildrens.org/fundraiser/3642390
