Tom Gamble: Valkyrie ‘taking big steps’ to close gap on competitors

Tom Gamble told Motorsport Week about the recent progress of the new Aston Martin Valkyrie as it takes on the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Since first winning the 2020 European Le Mans Series (ELMS) LMP3 title for United Autosports, the 23-year-old stepped up to his first ever Hypercar project this year.

The third FIA World Endurance Championship round on 10 May is their fourth outing with the V12-powered Valkyrie, combining Heart of Racing’s dual WEC-IMSA programmes so far.

“It’s been really a fun few months since announcing that I was part of the programme,” said Gamble, the ELMS champion and 2022 LMP2 runner-up.

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“I’ve been saying to a lot of people, the level in the WEC now is crazy.

“It’s always going up and it’s higher than ever.

“The top teams are performing at the highest and they’ve obviously got a lot more experience than us right now.

“So we’re catching up and in every race we’re taking big steps to get closer to them.

Chasing progression against experienced rivals

“It’s exciting going into every new weekend because you know you’re going to be a little bit closer to the front, a little bit closer to the pace, which is what it’s all about.

“Obviously, Le Mans is the next one after here – which is the big one – so fingers crossed we can have a positive result this weekend and then that will give us good confidence for the next one.

“Our feedback is crucial, whether it’s on the systems of the car, the performance of the car, or any little thing you can think of, what we feedback on and they (team race engineers) can go away and improve on.

“… By the end of the year, it’d be nice if we could be knocking on the door of the top-five, but like I say, the level’s so high you don’t know what it’s to be.

“But as long as we keep seeing progress, I think we’ll be pretty happy for our first year and then, gather all the information you know at the minute we’re a bit like a sponge and just kind of taking everything in.”