Tom Gamble wins second podium spot of the season in the ISMA Mobil1 WeatherTech 12 Hours of Sebring for the Aston Martin / The Heart of Racing team

By Paul Horton

Epperstone’s endurance racer Tom Gamble took his second podium spot of the season in the ISMA Mobil1 WeatherTech 12 Hours of Sebring in the GTD class last weekend.

After a thrilling start to the IMSA season opener at Daytona in January, 23-year-old Gamble followed that success to take a third-place podium with team-mates Canadian Zacharie Robichon and Brit Casper Stevenson in the 12-hour endurance classic.

It was a second podium in a row for the Aston Martin / The Heart of Racing (THOR) team in IMSA WeatherTech GTD class championship hunt in their #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo endurance race car.

The Aston Martin Vantage recorded its fourth GT podium finish in the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring following a brilliant fightback by The Heart of Racing (THOR) in the final hours of one of global motorsport’s most gruelling events.

After three gruelling practice sessions in the Aston Martin for the trio the car was running perfect.

Friday’s qualifying saw Robichon in the seat, He chalked up seven laps with the sixth fastest lap time of 2:00.061s, putting them in P6 on the grid in class for the race.

Again, as the lights went out on Saturday’s race day Robichon completed the first two stints, after the first pit stop, he quickly put the car among the leaders and established the THOR Aston Martin firmly in second place for the next 17 laps in the early hours of the endurance race.

Stevenson took over next, keeping the drive going and keeping the team in podium contention.

Gamble was waiting patiently in the pits to join the action, Stevenson peeled off into the pits and it was all on for Gamble. The seat change was rapid, and Gamble was in the running again.

Shortly after, Gamble took an unplanned trip into the pit lane to address a sensor issue, the team having to make a decision to work to a different pit stop plan at a moment’s notice.

This dropped the team out of sequence with the rest of the race and field so they had some hard work to do to get back into the rankings in the race.

Through putting a great strategy and plan together the team worked their way back into contention, running either in the lead of the class or 10th depending on which side of the fuel strategy they were on.

A full-course yellow in the eighth hour brought the trio back on sequence and into contention, but then Stevenson had an unfortunate spin just before sundown at Turn 17. With no damage to the Vantage, he recovered well.

Into the pits he headed, a fuel stop and check the car was ok, handing over to Gamble in the lead of the class.

Gamble then returned to the race for the final stints in seventh and began a stellar drive back to the front. Assisted by a late full course yellow in the last 30 minutes of the race, Gamble was embroiled in a massive eight-car scrap for the class victory.

With less than 10 minutes remaining, two rivals in front ran into issues, allowing Gamble to take the chequered flag in third place.

Gamble said: “It was a bit of a wild race at one point, we just seemed to be quite far down. Everything seemed to work out in our favour towards the end.

“The car was flying, massive credit to the Heart of Racing Team, they always give us a fast car. It was a solid day for us. It’s a pretty good way to start the season so hopefully we can keep this up.”