Barrichello Still “Getting Used to Everything” in LMGT3 Move

Eduardo Barrichello says he is still in the process of “getting used to everything” after making the move to endurance racing with a drive in the FIA World Endurance Championship with the Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin team.

The son of ex-Formula 1 driver Rubens made his WEC bow in last month’s Qatar 1812km season-opener as he and teammates Valentin Hasse-Clot and Derek Deboer finished ninth in the LMGT3 class in the No. 10 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

It marked Barrichello’s first outing in a GT3 car after making the switch from the Stock Car Pro Series in his native Brazil, where he has competed for the past two seasons.

The 23-year-old admitted that several aspects of sports car racing, including having to share the cockpit with two other drivers, required a degree of adjustment.

“It was different, it was good fun,” reflected Barrichello. “It was my first endurance race — other than that my longest ever race was 40 minutes. Having more than four hours in the car felt really nice, but different at the same time.

“I never had to deal with traffic; it gets quite hectic when the Hypercars come in groups. I really enjoyed myself, but I am still getting used to everything. I experienced a lot of situations that I never had before.

“For sure [sharing a car] is difficult because you have three different drivers from different backgrounds, but honestly it’s better than what I thought it would be. I was just enjoying myself and trying to learn as much as possible.

“I have two very good drivers as teammates, and also nice people. We have good chemistry since the beginning. It still takes time to get used to sharing the car, sharing the seat, but I think I will get used to it.”

Barrichello added that he had been eyeing a potential move to the WEC for some time, having first sampled GT3 machinery for Aston Martin at the end of 2023.

“To be in the WEC has been a dream of mine, and finally it became reality,” he said.

“I had a chance to test with Aston at the end of 2023. I did 10 or 15 laps at Snetterton and I think the team liked what I did. We started talking from then and finally at the end of 2024, we got the full budget that we needed and we made an agreement.”

Barrichello admitted his disappointment with the result in Qatar, which followed a disrupted build-up to the race as a crash for Deboer early on the second day of the pre-event Prologue test forced the No. 10 car to miss almost the whole of the second day.

However, he expressed optimism of a better performance in the upcoming races, particularly as he is already familiar with Imola and Spa owing to his experience of those tracks in the Formula Regional European Championship in 2021-22.

“I’m not here to finish ninth, I don’t think any of us are,” he said. “But it’s what we had and we have to learn from some of the mistakes we made.”

“I believe we can get better. We have a great group of people behind us and we have a great car. We need to get better at certain things, and hopefully we will be there soon.”