Rolex 24 at Daytona: Tom Gamble from Epperstone part of the Heart of Racing Team alongside Casper Stevenson, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi this weekend
Epperstone’s McLaren factory racing driver Tom Gamble can’t wait to be back in action this weekend in the 63rd edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in Florida, USA, writes Paul Horton.
The 23-year-old teams up with Canadian Zacharie Robichon, Italy’s Mattia Drudi and fellow Brit Casper Stevenson in the Heart of Racing Team’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo endurance race car in America’s biggest sportscar race that kickstarts the 2024 IMSA Sports Car Championship.
This year sees Gamble make his third appearance at the Florida endurance classic, after he made his event debut in 2022 as part of The Heart of Racing’s GTD squad in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Last season he raced with Inception Racing / Optimum Racing in a McLaren 720S GT3 EVO.
Gamble and his teammates will be aiming for an overall victory in the GTD class, which is currently stacked with 22 cars from major manufacturers including BMW, Cadillac, McLaren and Porsche - all of which also compete in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar division. There are a total 61 cars for the weekend’s grid in various classes competing.
Gamble’s been busy with three days of testing and practice sessions, a week in advance at the ‘Roar Before the Rolex 24’.
The weekend went well for the team, with six practice sessions seeing them all run smoothly with some focus on turn seven, the left hander which returns drivers back onto the circuits famous banking to the third speedway corner.
Fastest session for Gamble and the team was the one hour, Session four seeing them take sixth fastest in GTD class over 22 laps and a fastest time of 1;48.590s, and in the top 20 over all the sessions.
Gamble is no stranger to the Heart of Racing team, he had made previous race appearances with them over the years although this will be his first start with the team since Petit Le Mans in 2022.
Gamble said: “I’m really excited to be joining the Heart of Racing Team this weekend again.
“We had some great times back in 2022 and I’m really looking forward to another Rolex with them. Daytona is one of my favourite races and fingers crossed things go our way and we can get that watch.”
Gamble will line up on the grid with the likes of Ex-Formula 1 drivers Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean and Felipe Massa.
They will tackle the 24-hour race at the prestigious Daytona International Speedway in Florida, which has held the event since 1966 (although in 1972 it was shortened to a six-hour race).
The Daytona International Speedway sports car course is a 3.56-mile layout with 12 corners. It features all four turns of the banked oval, but a lap starts with the twisty infield section that makes up the opening six corners. There is also the ‘Bus Stop’ chicane on the back stretch, so drivers are not racing in a complete oval like they are for NASCAR’s Daytona 500.
The opening round of the 2025 IMSA season, the Daytona 24 Hours, starts at 6.40pm in the UK and 1.40pm local time on Saturday when Brit and Women in Motorsport driver Jamie Chadwick has the job of Grand Marshal to wave the cars off the line.