2023 Michelin Le Mans Cup GT3 Champion Valentin Hasse Clot faces a double challenge in 2026. Not only is the French driver racing alongside Austrian Philipp Sager in the Michelin Le Mans Cup for Racing Spirit of Léman, but he is also racing for the French team in the European Le Mans Series.
The opening race of the 2026 season in Barcelona saw Valentin Hasse Clot and Philipp Sager take maximum points to arrive in Le Castellet as championship leaders. So how does Hasse Clot sum up the weekend in Spain? “We came into this Michelin Le Mans Cup race weekend with no expectations, because it was a new lineup and kind of a last-minute programme for RSL,” he admitted. “We knew that, you know, every beginning of the year is a mess on track because everyone is super excited to be back. Our main priority was to stay clean the whole weekend, to take information, to progress in every session, just stay out of trouble and we would have a shot at the end; that's exactly what happened.”
So, will the team take a similar approach to the strategy used in Barcelona for the next race? “No, now it's a bit different. We are leading the championship, so the objectives for Le Castellet are adapted to the result of the previous week; that's how we work. We analyse what we did well, what we did wrong, and then we try to always improve. So how to improve? Victory is winning again, I believe!”
Looking back at the race in 2023, what are Hasse Clot’s memories of that race? “Actually, we should have won this race. We were leading the race by big margin, but we had an issue. The car stalled during the full course yellow, and the time it took me to cycle the power allowed the guy in P2 to overtake us. However, Paul Ricard is one of the tracks that suits the Aston the best. I have high expectations for Paul Ricard, because it's an Aston Martin friendly circuit.”
Valentin Hasse Clot is the only GT driver taking part in both the MLMC and ELMS this weekend. He will be racing a Racing Spirit of Léman run Aston Martin Vantage in both series. What are the challenges jumping from the MLMC car to the ELMS car? “It's not a big challenge for me to jump from a car to another, because in the end, it's just the same car with different tyres, Michelin for the Le Mans Cup and Goodyear for the ELMS.”
With 34 LMP3 cars on the MLMC grid, how does Hasse Clot deal with the traffic during the two-hour races? “It's very difficult, but the advantage compared to ELMS is that it is all the same cars, LMP3. You don't have to adapt from an LMP2 to an LMP3. Once you figure out how to deal with an LMP3, then it's only LMP3s every time. It's also much easier to deal with the traffic at Le Castellet. You’ve got run off and you’ve got longer straight lines. So, it's always easier.”
So, what is the game plan for Round 2 at the Circuit Paul Ricard? “It's just all focused on execution. Perfect execution; perfect communication in the team. Sharing information between the ELMS and Michelin Le Mans Cup is a huge help for us, so it's just all about repeating those things in Le Castellet.”
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