Aston Martin Racing (AMR) has confirmed it will be returning to the very front of the Le Mans 24-hour grids in 2025 with a competition version of its astounding Valkyrie hypercar. It will be the first time an Aston has competed for the overall win at the world's most famous endurance race since 1964.
Competing at the top of multiple categories
AMR made the announcement as it unveiled the car at its Technology Campus at the UK circuit of Silverstone, confirming that the Valkyrie AMR Pro will run in the top 'Hypercar' class of both the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championships (IMSA) from 2025 onwards.
It not only means that the Valkyrie race car will compete in three of the most prestigious sportscar endurance events in the world - namely, Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring - but that Aston Martin will be the only manufacturer to have a presence in all classes of endurance racing (from Hypercar through to GT4), as well as Formula 1.
Running in the ultimate endurance classes, the carbon-fibre Valkyrie will use an enhanced version of the Cosworth-built, 6.5-litre naturally-aspirated V12 engine, which - even in the road-going application - revs to 11,000rpm and develops more than 1,000hp. The Valkyrie AMR Pro, which will make do without the part-electric hybrid system of the road-going model, will need to meet Balance of Performance requirements for the Hypercar class, and also has to be homologated ahead of the 2025 WEC Hypercar and IMSA GTP seasons.
Racing team has some Heart
The team charged with running the Aston Martin race programmes will be The Heart of Racing (HoR). Formed in 2014 by Gabe Newell, an American businessman and philanthropist, HoR is a charity which raises money for the Seattle Children's Cardiology Research Fund, among other good causes, and the racing team was created in 2020 - since when, it has partnered with Aston Martin, mainly running Vantage GT3s in IMSA's two GTD classes.
Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda, said when announcing the Valkyrie AMR Pro: "Performance is the lifeblood of everything that we do at Aston Martin, and motorsport is the ultimate expression of this pursuit of excellence.
"We have been present at Le Mans since the earliest days, and through those glorious endeavours we succeeded in winning Le Mans in 1959 and our class 19 times over the past 95 years. Now we return to the scene of those first triumphs aiming to write new history with a racing prototype inspired by the fastest production car Aston Martin has ever built.
"In addition to our presence in the FIA Formula 1 World 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."
Proud history at Le Mans
Aston Martin has a proud history at Le Mans, first entering the French endurance race in 1928, five years after its inception. But while the British manufacturer has won no fewer than 19 class victories at the event in the interim - the most recent coming at the 2020 edition, when Vantage AMRs came first and third in the LM GTE Pro category - Aston Martin can only claim one overall triumph at the Circuit de la Sarthe. That was back in 1959, when a DBR1 piloted by Brit Roy Salvadori and American Carroll Shelby - yes, THAT Carroll Shelby - completed 323 laps for victory. Another DBR1, with a French-Belgian crew, was a lap further behind in second, for a much-coveted 1-2 finish for the manufacturer, but a series of underwhelming performances from the racing DB4 in the 1960s saw the factory's official race programme close in 1963, with only a privateer entry in 1964 to note.
In total, though, more than 240 drivers have raced Aston Martins at Le Mans in the past 95 years, in 27 different chassis and engine combinations. With 2023 being the 110th anniversary of Aston Martin's founding, it is fitting that the company has announced a return to the scene of its greatest motorsport victory - but the carmaker also confirmed it will not be forgetting its GT3 and GT4 cars, as it will be building and preparing all-new racers based on the Vantage platform. These conform to new rule-sets coming into force, including the LMGT3 regs for 2024 that replace the outgoing GTE class in the WEC.