Although it looks like a racecar for the road, and was designed to meet World Endurance Championship (WEC) Hypercar regulations, the Aston Martin Valkyrie had no solid plans to compete in motorsports. Not until now.
The automaker announced that with the help of Heart of Racing, it will enter at least one Valkyrie into competition in the top class of racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the 12 Hours of Sebring starting in 2025. Moreover, the car will compete in both the FIA WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportCar Championship.
“Aston Martin’s return to the pinnacle of endurance racing will allow us to build a deeper connection with our customers and community, many of whom found their passion for the brand through our past success at Le Mans,” said Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman at Aston Martin Lagonda. “The complex knowledge-base we are building through our F1 team is data that Aston Martin Performance Technologies can harness to further enhance the capabilities of the Valkyrie racecar at Le Mans, in WEC and IMSA.”
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Based on the Valkyrie AMR Pro, Aston Martin plans to hone the car’s performance at its technology campus in Silverstone, England, where its F1 team is based. Oddly, the first task will likely be to make it perform worse.
The automaker confirmed that the racecar will continue to use the customer car’s 6.5-liter Cosworth V12, but it will have to be de-tuned significantly. The naturally-aspirated engine that’s mated to an electric motor can rev to 11,000 RPM and develops over 1,000 hp (746 kW/1,014 PS), but sporting regulations limit the racecar’s output to just 671 hp (500 kW/680 PS). In addition, WEC and IMSA have a strict, pre-defined aerodynamic performance window that it will have to meet without losing too much lap time on the way.
“Together with our partners we are absolutely confident that we can deliver a race car with the potential and the performance capabilities to fight alongside the benchmark machinery in the class,” said Adam Carter, Aston Martin’s head of motorsport. “It’s a fascinating program, given that this is the only hypercar in the class with direct synergies to its road car counterpart, but the Valkyrie concept was always intended to break through boundaries, and now we have the opportunity to show what it can do on a track.”
In addition to the Valkyrie, Aston Martin announced that it will build all-new GT3 and GT4 racecars based on the Vantage platform. It says that these cars will conform to all existing GT rules, including the new, 2024 LMGT3 regulations, and will give it broad representation across a variety of racing series around the world.