It was a weekend of wrapping up the 2025 calendar, but also exciting to kick off the latest programme – and one which is particularly special to me, personally. Racing with Blackthorn and under the Ecurie Ecosse banner, we kicked off the Asian Le Mans Series programme with one clear focus. Taking Ecurie Ecosse back to Le Mans, 70 years on from its outright win.

It has been a programme that I have worked to bring together over several months, and I am very proud to be bringing together my Aston Martin family and a Scottish institution, while proudly flying the flag. It is also great to be back in the ALMS paddock, as we look to build a strong foundation ahead of the Middle East rounds early in the New Year.

Malaysia is always a great event, and we arrived in Sepang feeling confident in our overall package. The Aston has been getting stronger and stronger with Blackthorn throughout the year, and it was great to be back with Giacomo and running alongside the new AMR Driver Academy winner, Kobe Pauwels.

Sure enough, early pace looked good, and we were running at the sharp end against a very strong grid. Weather was always going to play a part, but we seemed to have a good balance, and felt strong in the dry conditions. Qualifying put us in a good place, inside the top-6.

Race 1 seemed to throw everything at us, with a dry start, rainfall, safety car, cautions, incidents and strategy calls which brought us back into the fold. It all played out over the four hours, and from initially climbing the order with a strong opener from Giacomo, and quick laps from Kobe, strategy calls and pitstop cycles dropped us down as low as P17. However, in pit strategies we trust and, as the laps counted down, we had great pace and worked our way up the order. Strong restarts and with pitstops playing out, we were back inside the top-10 with 20 minutes to go, and then late stops and our ability to keep pushing to the line gained us even more ground, so I was able to move up to P3 – in sight of the leaders as we crossed the line.

A mega start to the season, back on the podium and a solid foundation to build on for our title challenge.

Race 2 saw another weather-affected four hours, and it was a battle through tricky changeable conditions, with strategy always going to play a major part. Running on a wet but drying track with slick tyres, with the risk of losing more time through a tyre change than trying to push through until the track came to the tyres. We climbed as high as to fight for the top-4, but we then took a gamble on tyres later in the race which, on this occasion, didn’t go our way. Further cautions and safety cars did help to pull back some of the lost ground, but a heavy rainstorm in the closing minutes brought an early end to an y chance of making up any ground, ending the weekend in P13.

With an eye on rounds 3 and 4 in Dubai in January, for now, we take a break and look forward to time with family.  It has been a fantastic year, overall, and signing off with another podium means we have solid points on the board as we head into the break. We will be ready to resume the fight in the Middle East in a few weeks time.

Asian Le Mans Series 2025/26 –
Team: Ecurie Ecosse Blackthorn AMR
Car number: #56
Circuit: Sepang, Malaysia
Race 1: P3
Race 2 : P13
Drivers’ championship: P7
Teams’ championship: P7