IMSA GTP: Lamborghini & Aston Martin Coming On Strong

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — BMW dominated qualifying for the first four races of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, then Porsche swept to victory in all four to take a commanding lead in the Grand Touring Prototype class point standings.

But Acura has rallied to win the last two races, and Cadillac was in position to finish first in both. On top of that, the two newest manufacturers participating in the GTP class – Lamborghini and Aston Martin – have run increasingly closer to the front.

At the recent Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International, Romain Grosjean led most of the third hour of the race (23 laps in total) and the No. 63 Automobili Lamborghini Squadra Corse Lamborghini SC63 matched its best result in seven IMSA starts over the last two years with seventh place.

Similarly, in Aston Martin’s first season of IMSA GTP competition, Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis appeared poised for a top-five finish in Aston Martin THOR Team’s No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie but suffered bad luck when a caution right after their late stop for energy dropped them to ninth place at the checkered flag.

Still, Aston Martin THOR team principal Ian James was encouraged by the unique-looking and sounding car’s latest showing.

“As we promised at the beginning, we’ve been making gradual progress with the Valkyrie and showed increased speed at every race,” James said. “So far, that’s been true. Reliability – touch wood – seems really good, and performance is coming up to where we expected at this part of the year. Just very positive.”

The Aston Martin drivers came away from Watkins Glen with similar enthusiasm. The strong showing came despite struggling to find a good balance in the car throughout the race weekend. Gunn was happy that he and De Angelis were able to get some extra track time at a Michelin tire test the day after the race.

The most exciting aspect of the weekend for the British racer was being able to compete on pace with frontrunning cars like the Porsches and BMWs.

“Caddy and Acura were definitely quite a long way ahead, and then there was kind of like a pack of the rest of us,” Gunn observed. “In a way it was nice to be fighting cars and catching some cars during our stints, which hasn’t always happened this year. I definitely think there were points in the race where we were competitive. I struggled a lot at the start of the race with the rain and really struggled to get rear tire temperature. That’s an area where we’re working really hard to improve.

“But once it came into the window, we started to put some good laps together,” he added. “Towards the end we got a bit unlucky with the timing of the yellow. We had already committed to doing a splash earlier than we needed to. But that’s racing. You can’t always predict what’s going to happen in the future. We were looking good for a sixth or seventh position, which is a step up on what we’ve had before.”

While the Aston Martin is most noticeable for its shrieking V-12 engine, the Lamborghini stands out through its piercing, bright Italian flag livery colors of Verde Mantis (green), Nero Noctis (black), Bianco Alpi (white) and Rosso Sangue (red). That made it easier to see during the rainy portion of the race at Watkins Glen, which is when Grosjean and the SC63 were at their best.

Even more impressive, Grosjean was driving without the benefit of a cool suit, air conditioning, or drink bottle, none of which functioned correctly during his three-hour opening stint. Grosjean returned to the car for the final hour after Daniil Kvyat drove two hours.

Grosjean was excited about the potential for the Lamborghini SC63 for the last two races of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup – the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the 27th annual Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Coming out of Watkins Glen, Kvyat was also upbeat.

“It’s great to finally finish a race this year,” he said. “That was very important for us and to get P7 shows that we were competitive, and we were in the game throughout the race. There are a lot of positives to take from this race and I hope that we will be able to bring some things to the car that will help us make a step forward with the pace of the car.”

As noted, Lamborghini is only seven races into its IMSA GTP stint – just three with the Riley-prepared effort this year – and the Valkyrie just completed its fifth IMSA race.

It’s fair to say both manufacturers are very much in the development stage with their cars compared to the core GTP competition that has been racing since the start of 2023 and testing in the year prior to that.

“We want to just have races where we progressively get closer and closer to the front, and I think we’ve seen that on the IMSA side in the past few races,” noted De Angelis. “Our goal is to keep progressing and moving forward and hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have a car that can compete at the front. I think it’s going as we expected and as we want.”

“We’ll keep working,” added Gunn. “I think definitely we are improving race by race. It’s pretty difficult to see when you’re fighting for seventh, eighth or ninth, but we can definitely see the progress and we just need to keep on that trajectory.”