THOR turns another page for Aston Martin vet Turner

Heart of Racing Team’s expansion into prototype sports car racing has provided new opportunities for many talented Aston Martin factory racing drivers at the highest level of the sport. It’s also given Darren Turner — perhaps the most revered Aston Martin Racing driver of all time — another opportunity to excel in one of GT3 racing’s most competitive classes at 51 years young.

A three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner and 20-plus year Aston Martin factory driver, Turner is back running a full-season schedule in GT World Challenge America for The Heart of Racing. And this weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, he’s competing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the first time since 2023.

“It’s an extra race for the year, and I’m looking forward to joining Casper (Stevenson),” Turner said ahead of his GTD stand-in appearance in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Tom Gamble, who is committed to a full-season FIA WEC program in one of Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars, can’t be in Belgium and California at the same time, so Turner is taking his place alongside Stevenson in the No. 27 car.

Along the way, Turner and Gray Newell — the son of video game luminary and Heart of Racing co-founder Gabe — are four races into their GT World America campaign. Competing in the Pro-Am class with a similar Vantage GT3, they took a step forward at Circuit of The Americas following a difficult first weekend in Sonoma Raceway.

2025 is the first time in two years that Turner has been in the rhythm of a full season of professional racing. After finishing runner-up in the British GT Championship GT4 standings, his primary focus as an Aston Martin High Performance Development driver has been his work developing the Lagonda brand’s newest road-going hybrid supercars like the Valkyrie AMR Pro and the Valhalla. He’s also helped NLS team Doerr Motorsport and Pirelli develop tires for their GT3 and GT4 Aston Martin efforts, though he’s only made sporadic racing appearances in the Nürburgring-based series.

While racing a variety of machinery and sports car series, Turner (left) also enjoys teaming up with the next generation of sports car drivers. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images)

Last year, Turner spent as much time racing a fun variety of vintage cars at Goodwood — Corvettes, Mustangs, Jaguar E-Types and Ford Capris — as he did making one-off appearances in the Michelin Le Mans Cup, the Dubai 24 Hours, and the UK’s GT Cup Championship.

“Yeah, the last couple of years, it’s been a bit of just jumping into different cars,” Turner reflected. “And some championships that were meant to happen, didn’t happen for me. So I’m really happy to have a full season under my belt this year. I’m just looking forward to working with Gray and getting better and better as we go through the season.

“ extra bonus with IMSA this weekend — and sharing a car with Casper, I’ve seen his performance over the last couple of years. He’s super fast, a talented driver, so I’m looking forward to joining him this weekend. Him and Tom have already had a good start to the season, so I know what my job this weekend is — stay out of trouble, make sure they score some points, and hopefully hand the car back in a good position for the next races after.”

It’s been even longer — almost 20 years — since the last time Turner has raced full-time in North America, when he was wheeling the V12-powered Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 in the American Le Mans Series. “I did forget how hot it was, racing in America,” Turner said with a  laugh. “The first couple of SRO weekends — not Sonoma, but COTA — it reminded me about fitness and preparation before a weekend and how hot the cars can be inside.”

As Turner has returned to full-time competition in North America, he’s now competing against a younger, hungrier breed of GT3 drivers and the veteran is in awe, and at peace, with the progression he’s seen from the next generation.

“Oh, the next gen, they’re too bloody quick, that’s what I know! They’re so good,” he declared. “If I look back and think, ‘When did I feel like I was the complete package, or nearly there?’ I would have been maybe in my late 20s, early 30s. And you see the drivers coming through now…I’m involved with the Young Driver Award in the UK, and we’re seeing the 16 to 17-year-olds coming through, and they’re just great. They’re confident out of the car, they’re really knowledgeable in terms of the technical side of the cars themselves.”

That applies not only to GTD’s top factory drivers in their primes like Philip Ellis, Robby Foley, Daniel Serra and Matt Bell but also to the “super silvers” of the category like Stevenson, Russell Ward, and Parker Thompson.

“It’s nice to see the young guys coming through, and it’s nice to see some older guys, like me, still hanging around and trying to mix it with them as well,” Turner added.

The last time Turner was in IMSA before this weekend’s Monterey SportsCar Championship was when he and Heart of Racing won the GTD class at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, two years ago.

Turner has been racing sporadically for Heart of Racing since it began racing under its current identity, with Aston Martin, back in 2020. And like many inside the sports car racing community, he’s marveled in their quick rise to prominence in such a short period of time, under the leadership of team principal Ian James.

“ super impressive what they’ve achieved, and then obviously to see what they’re doing with the Valkyrie and the GTP and LMH programs as well,” he said. “Ian’s led a very small team to begin with. And he’s just increased the level of ability from everyone within that team, just bringing in really good guys as well as they keep increasing what that team can do, and the amount of championships they’re doing as well.”

To his point, two of the drivers who won the Rolex 24 alongside Turner in 2023, Marco Sorensen and Roman de Angelis, are now part of the Valkyrie Hypercar program — De Angelis primarily on the IMSA side, Sorensen on the WEC side. All the while the team has a footprint in WEC, IMSA, SRO America in both GT3 and GT4 racing, and other GT3 events around the world via Heart of Racing’s partnership with SPS Automotive.

But from his first race with the team, the COVID-era six-hour race at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in September 2020, Heart of Racing has held a special place for Turner in the sunset of his brilliant career.

“It’s just incredible to see that progression over not that many years, in terms of the more established teams. So yeah, it’s super to be involved with Heart of Racing,” Turner said. “It’s a team that, if I think about my career — I’ve been going on a chunk of time now, and it was coming back with Heart of Racing that got me back into actually, really loving going racing again.

“That might sound a bit weird, but there’s a period when you’re sort of a ‘top dog,’ you’re the guy that’s at the front of the team, and then the next wave of drivers come through, and it’s quite a hard transition. Going out and having no pressure like I had when I joined Heart of Racing was a really good thing, and I’ve not looked back since then.”

Whether it’s this weekend at Laguna Seca or sometime later on in the GT World America season, a rejuvenated Turner will be working hard to summon his vintage form and reach the top step of the podium once again.