Beneath the surface of Car Blanche, stealth-mode successor to van der Steur Racing

When it was announced just before Watkins Glen that a new company called YRB Racing had purchased the assets of Van der Steur Racing to enter the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the question on the minds of most fans and media members alike would have been, “Who are these people?”

Two weeks later and coming off a debut podium for the team officially known in the IMSA paddock as Car Blanche, neither team principal Chris Deely nor star driver Valentin Hasse-Clot have come out and said anything about this mysterious new entity to quell speculation.

“You probably know as much as you will at the moment,” Deely said on Friday afternoon after the first practice session at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. “We’re happy with the amount of information that is out on that topic at the moment. So that's the way it'll stay.”

The day before cars unloaded from their haulers for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, Rory van der Steur and his family-run team announced the end of van der Steur Racing, and the new announcement from YRB Racing followed almost immediately. It was a deal that had been discussed for at least three months behind the scenes.

“It all happened very quickly,” recalled Hasse-Clot, the Aston Martin factory GT driver who’d raced for VDSR since 2023. “Meeting the right people at the right time in life.”

Even in attempting to explain how the unbranded plain white livery isn’t part of an elaborate marketing scheme, there are still more questions than answers. “It’s not on purpose. It's just how it is. We don't do that on purpose to entertain people,” Hasse-Clot said. "It's like that, and we're focusing on this sporting aspect,” Hasse-Clot added.

“In the end, it sounds like a mystery for everyone. But it's not like a marketing plan. It is just how it is.”

What we know is that over the Formula 1 offseason, YRB Racing LLC purchased shares in the Aston Martin Formula 1 Team, enough to help raise over £100 million [$134m]. And that for all the speculation of who is behind the new company, the “YRB” handle isn’t a reference to NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney’s nickname.

We also know that after just one race in the GTD class, Car Blanche looks like it belonged in IMSA, strong from the moment its all-white Aston Martin rolled out of a hauler still branded in VDSR logos. Hasse-Clot and co-drivers Trenton Estep and Marius Fossard finished third in GTD in the No. 068 Vantage GT3 Evo, backing up the Frenchman’s confidence.

After fitting right in at the Glen, the team has peeled the "0" off its number t Brandon Badraoui/Lumen via Getty Images

“It was not unexpected because we topped both practice sessions, and got just a bit unlucky at some stages in the race with the pit lane closed and everything, and we made our way back into the top three,” said Hasse-Clot.

“We had a very good line-up for that race with two drivers we trust, Trenton, who's an in-house driver in the GT4 category, who had a lot of running the same weekend, knows the team, and Marius, my little protegé in Europe in ELMS, and Le Mans, was in a good rhythm. So I think it was not a huge surprise, but for sure a big relief for us.”

Hasse-Clot has been a pillar of the Car Blanche team through this transitional period, according to Deely, who said, “I think it's definitely been quick for us as well, but it's something he and I have been working on for a while. I've got to say thank you to Val for kind of orchestrating all of this. He has been instrumental behind it all.”

“I think it's all positive change for the team. We still maintain the same team we had before, but you know, taking steps forward to continue getting better and improving on the track and off the track.

“[The personnel is] the same as it was. But we're definitely pushing to add more experience, and grow now, for sure. The goal is to continue to expand and continue to add talent, add personnel, but at the moment we're still kind of as we were before.”

Car Blanche is still in its plain white livery for this weekend’s race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, but now with a twist, moving up from GTD to GTD Pro, with Scott Andrews joining Hasse-Clot for Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute sprint race.

It’s part of the team’s long-term ambition to make a full-time step up to GTD Pro in 2027.

“I think it has always been a goal for us, especially Chris and I in the background for two or three years to one day reach GTD Pro,” Hasse-Clot said. "After the switch and the change, we decided to go as soon as possible to learn.

“We could have waited until the end of the year and gone testing, but at some point, as Chris said, you need to go. So why not now? Especially after a very good weekend in Watkins, first podium for us, we thought it would be the right moment.”

Aston Martin veteran Valentin Hasse-Clot is choosing a new adventure with Car Blanche. Getty Images

For Hasse-Clot, the only differences are changing the number panels from green to red, and cutting the leading zero out of the number plate of the No. 68 Aston Martin. As is often repeated on IMSA broadcasts, GTD Pro and GTD are mechanically identical: Same GT3 cars, same Michelin tires, same Balance of Performance – and although GTD is still nominally a Pro-Am category, there’s nothing “Am” about the crop of young aspiring professionals carrying an FIA Silver driver categorization.

“It's the same car, same group of cars around. I believe we just continue the work we started in Watkins, and we have a lot of work ahead of us anyway," he said. "So we just focus on ourselves, and I'm sure we'll be competitive.”

“The rest of the year will be a little bit of learning and changing from one race to another, but the plan is to be in GTD Pro next year for sure. For now, it's the start of a new adventure, so we're starting from a white page and a white car.”

“We're happy to have something to do during the class split now,” Deely joked. “It was always just stay left and just wait for everyone to pass!

“At the end of the day, it is just a change in color. We’re still gonna compete at the highest level we can.

“I think we’re implementing new changes every time we come out, whether that's rebranding or structuring behind the scenes, we'll slowly start to fully get to where we want to be. But we're very far from where we're going to be.”