Yahoo Autos Aston Martin Is Taking the V-12 Valkyrie Hypercar to Le Mans
The Aston Martin Valkyrie currently exists as both a limit-breaking road car and an even more absurd track car, but Aston Martin's Adrian Newey-penned hypercar lineup has been incomplete until now. The Valkyrie was also planned as a race car, one that could compete at the very top level of sports car racing and fight to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall. Those dreams were shelved all the way back in 2020. That was the plan, but plans change, sometimes for the better.
Aston Martin announced Wednesday that a racing variant of the Valkyrie will in fact be built, one conforming to the Le Mans Hypercar class specifications and eligible to compete in the top class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That's not all, though. A factory program aligned with PC gaming mogul Gabe Newell's Heart of Racing plans to enter at least one Hypercar racing-spec Valkyrie in the respective top classes of both the full season of IMSA and FIA World Endurance Championship racing in 2025.
That will make the Valkyrie the first LMH-spec car officially confirmed for racing in IMSA. Aston Martin will fight at least Acura, Cadillac, Porsche, Lamborghini, and BMW for the overall wins in races like the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring. Ferrari, Peugeot, Toyota, and Alpine join Cadillac, Porsche, Lamborghini, and BMW as competition in Europe, meaning an unprecedented nine factory efforts are expected to contest the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans before Honda's newly-renamed HRC US even begins considering bringing its race-winning Acura ARX-06 overseas.
While all of the cars currently run by major auto manufacturers in the current Hypercar class are hybrids and the Valkyrie road car is a hybrid itself, the racing variant of the car will follow in the footsteps of the Valkyrie AMR Pro track car and forego any sort of electrical assistance. More importantly, it will also pack the naturally-aspirated V-12 from the road car. The current version of that engine produces 1000 hp at 11,000 RPM, but the version that will race will be built for endurance rather than outright power and aim to meet the LMH target output of 670 hp. Not only will the Valkyrie Hypercar be the only V-12 racing car in its class, it is the only V-12 racing car officially planned for any professional series in the world any time soon.
The new Valkyrie program will be Aston Martin's first shot at endurance racing's biggest prize since the ill-fated AMR-One, an open-top prototype that briefly ran in 2011. The brand has kept busy in GT racing in the meantime, collecting three class wins with racing variants of the Vantage as a factory operation and two more as a manufacturer. Aston Martin also joined Formula 1 in 2021, taking over branding of the former Sahara Force India and Racing Point team after team owner Lawrence Stroll led a major investment in the automaker. In 2025, Aston Martin will join Ferrari as the second team with factory operations in both top-level sports car racing and Formula 1.
Since Ferrari does not currently race in IMSA, Aston will be the only company on Earth chasing the biggest trophies for sports cars in North America in addition to Formula 1 and European sports car programs.
With full-season programs planned for both IMSA and the World Endurance Championship, expect to see the Valkyrie Hypercar race for the first time at the 2025 24 Hours of Daytona. With Toyota's GR Super Sports program assumed canceled since 2021 and the idea of a Peugeot 9X8 road car little more than a dream waiting for a customer, the Valkyrie will be the first modern Le Mans Hypercar from a major manufacturer to ever race with an equivalent road car in customer hands.
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