James “Very Lucky” to Still Drive Alongside Team Principal Duties

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Ian James said he’s “very lucky” to still be able to compete as a driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship alongside his increased team principal duties with Heart of Racing Team’s expansion into the Hypercar ranks.

The 50-year-old U.S.-based Englishman has continued his LMGT3 campaign in the team’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo this year in parallel to serving as the team boss for not only the car he drives but also the pair of factory Aston Martin Valkyries in the top class.

The Heart of Racing-run entries are making their highly anticipated global race debut in Friday’s season-opening Qatar 1812km.

“Having the right people in place, I have to trust in their abilities to run it. But I’m definitely heavily involved with both programs,” James told Sportscar365.

“For sure, my workload has increased but my enjoyment factor, when I’m driving the car, had not decreased.

“That’s my little alone time, as it were. When I get in the car, I can switch off all the other things and I have 100 percent trust in the people that are in the pits running both programs.”

The braintrust in the Aston Hypercar outfit includes George Howard-Chappell, who serves as team manager, in what James has described as having “built out of a nucleus” of three to four key people that were at Multimatic.

Heart of Racing’s Hypercar program is being run out of a shop near Silverstone in the UK, while nearly half of its crew in the U.S. are all new hires for its single-car GTP effort that will debut in next month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

“Over 50 percent is existing guys that have transferred over to that program and some new faces, but there’s also some old faces that we’re familiar with,” said James, who has based the IMSA GTP team in Phoenix.

While James will be pulling double duty this year in the WEC, as both driver and team principal, he will fully focus on his management duties in the WeatherTech Championship, having stood down from his previous Michelin Endurance Cup driver role in GTD.

“At Daytona, I was focused on the two cars and I’ll be focused on both cars going forward in IMSA. There’s only so much bandwidth; I had to give up something,” he said.

“I really want to go back to Le Mans and get a result there. That’s the nucleus of me doing another year [driving in WEC]. A lot of people encouraged me to stay in the car, so I kind of followed that trend.

“It’s a privilege to be able to drive one of these cars and race in such an amazing championship. While I’ve still got enough pace to represent the Bronze class there, I’m very lucky to go and do it.”

Lean Hypercar/GTP Lineup Aimed to Give Drivers Maximum Track Time

James said he assembled Heart of Racing’s prototype squad around six core drivers, opting for the leanest driver lineup out of any team or manufacturer that’s contesting both the WEC and WeatherTech Championship full-time.

Both Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis are overlapping between both series, serving as third drivers with the full-time WEC pairings of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble (No. 007) and Alex Riberas and Marco Sorensen (No. 009).

Additionally, Gamble is set for the bulk of the WeatherTech Championship GTD season in the team’s Vantage GT3 Evo.

“During my driving, I always felt like I was stronger when I drove a lot, and stayed in the car in some form or another,” said James.

“I definitely wanted the Hypercar guys to get as many mileage as possible.

“Putting Tom in the GT car just made sense to keep it within the group and just keep him really sharp all the time. He’s obviously really good in a GT car as well.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John