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Photo: SRO GT racing veteran Andrew Howard will bow out of top-line GT3 competition at the end of the year, it has been announced. The 62-year-old Briton has elected to call time on his full time driving career that yielded two British GT Championship crowns, in 2013 and 2015, when the current series concludes at Brands Hatch next month. He also won the 2016 GTE title in the European Le Mans Series, and made two appearances in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016-17. Howard explained that he is hanging up his helmet mainly because of the changing nature of Pro-Am competition in GT racing, amid the constant arrival of younger and better-prepared FIA Bronze-rated drivers. “In short, despite the competitive fires burning in me just as intensely as 10 or 15 years ago, I just don’t have the time and energy to commit myself 100 percent to racing any more,” he said. “The game has moved on over the past decade and it’s clear that younger Am drivers, who can race weekend after weeke...

Photo: Aston Martin Heart of Racing Team completed an initial test with a development version of the Aston Martin Valkyrie ahead of planned Evo joker updates to the car for next year. Ross Gunn and Harry Tincknell handled driving duties on Wednesday at Silverstone, in what was billed as a “comprehensive test” for the 6.5-liter V12-powered LMH-based prototype. While specifics on the potential upgrades were not disclosed, the British manufacturer stated they assessed a “wide range of technical items” in order to evaluate the “future performance direction” of the car. “This was a significant day for Valkyrie,” said Heart of Racing team principal Ian James. “Some of the developments we tried today will fuel our thinking as we consider the technical direction we go next with Valkyrie. “We have been able to evaluate lots of areas of performance on the car, so Silverstone has proved an interesting place to challenge ideas. ...

Photo: PONOS Racing Honda factory driver Tadasuke Makino says he is excited by the prospect of vying for overall victory in next month’s Suzuka 1000km as he prepares to make his first GT3 race appearance in seven years as part of the PONOS Racing Ferrari team. Makino will share the No. 45 PONOS Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo with fellow SUPER GT regulars Seita Nonaka and Takuro Shinohara as part of the Prancing Horse’s only Pro class effort for the Intercontinental GT Challenge fixture on Sept. 11-13. The 29-year-old, who races a Honda HRC Prelude-GT in SUPER GT’s top GT500 class and also represents the brand in Super Formula, has two previous starts in the Suzuka 1000km/10 Hours to his name, the last of which came in 2019 when he raced for Team UpGarage in a Honda NSX GT3 Evo, finishing 14th. That remains Makino’s last race in a GT3 car, but his work with PONOS in the SRO Japan Cup as an advisor to Am pairing Yorikatsu Tsujiko and Yusuke Yamasaki, who were original...

Photo: IMSA Archives Former IMSA owner, CEO and competitor Charlie Slater passed away last Saturday in South Florida at the age of 69 following an extended illness. “IMSA, at its core values, has always been a culture of family – the IMSA racing family,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “The loss of Charlie has hit all of us hard. The positive impact he has had on the IMSA community over the years has been discussed and recognized by so many legends of IMSA in recent days. “It is with heavy hearts that we will go racing this week at VIR…but also with the same ‘IMSA family’ spirit that Charlie represented. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of Charlie’s family and loved ones.” That ‘family’ spirit was evident among a mix of past and present IMSA competitors as word circulated in the industry of Slater’s passing. Those he worked alongside, shared a cockpit with and competed wheel-to-wheel with spoke of what a quality person Slater was – respected in b...

Photo: Bob Chapman/Ford The fight for the Mustang Challenge North America titles in both Dark Horse and Dark Horse Legends continues this weekend at Virginia International Raceway for the penultimate event of the season. With a sweep of the weekend last time out at Watkins Glen International, Cole Loftsgard of Round 3 Racing, has marginally increased his points lead over Devin Anderson to 120 points. However with Anderson, in his TechSport Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, finishing second in both races while also scoring pole for Race 2 and setting the fastest race laps in both 45-minute contests, it’s kept his championship hopes still very much alive with four races to go. It’s a similar story in the DHL class, with Wheelhouse Motorsports driver Tom Tait holding a 130-point margin over Paley Motorsport with AAG Racing driver Chris Clarke. A total of 15 entries are set for this weekend’s pair of races at the picturesque 3.27-mile circuit. Track action begins o...

Photo: Seven x Seven Racing Porsche GT300 squad Seven x Seven Racing has elected to promote Taichi Watarai to a race seat for the remainder of the current SUPER GT season. Up-and-coming Japanese star Watarai, 22, will step up from his third driver role to partner Sven Mueller aboard the team’s No. 666 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo for the remaining five races of 2026, beginning with this weekend’s Suzuka 300km. It comes at the expense of two-time GT300 champion Kiyoto Fujinami, who stands down from driving duties after a season-and-a-half with the team. Watarai will make his SUPER GT debut at Suzuka, but is already well known to Seven x Seven via his activities in one-make Porsche and GT3 competition. The Saitama Prefecture native was part of the recently established team’s title-winning effort in the ST-X (FIA GT3) class of Super Taikyu last year alongside Fujinami and team owner ‘Bankcy’ (real name Hiroyuki Ogawa). In addition, he was a race winner in SRO J...

Photo: Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee Mercedes-AMG has announced it will return to the FIA GT World Cup on the streets of Macau after a year’s absence with a three-car effort involving Craft-Bamboo Racing and first-time event participant Tigani Motorsport. The Stuttgart brand confirmed on Wednesday that it will have three of its Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos on the grid for the end-of-season street event on Nov. 19-22, marking its return to Macau after it elected to sit out the 2025 running over concerns around the cost of installing FIA-mandated torque sensors. Four-time Macau GT winner Maro Engel will drive one of Craft-Bamboo’s two cars as he bids to follow up his victory on his previous Macau visit in 2024, flanked by Silver-rated Adderly Fong, who makes the switch to Mercedes-AMG from Audi. Lucas Auer, meanwhile, will compete in the sole entry fielded by Australian team Tigani, which is expanding to race at Macau for the first time following its extensive GT World C...