Having already announced it will return to top-level endurance motorsport, Aston Martin has fully revealed the competition-spec Valkyrie hypercar it will enter into both the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship (IMSA), as well as confirming its driver line-ups.
Who are the lucky racers taking the wheels of these Valkyries?
With the WEC contender sporting a natty green livery and the IMSA Aston rolling in blue warpaint, Aston is proud of the fact that its Valkyrie is the only car in the top racing categories of both that is derived from a road-legal hypercar. As part of the WEC programme, it will be competing for the overall victory at the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans - and if it succeeds, then if you’ve got enough money (e.g. lots) you could potentially drive your own Le Mans winner on the roads if you’re a Valkyrie owner.
Anyway, with the Aston Martin The Heart Of Racing (THOR) Team - the outfit running the vehicles in both series - making its world competitive debut at the opening round of the 2025 WEC season - the Qatar 1,812km on February 28 - it has confirmed that it will run two cars in the WEC. The #007 vehicle will be driven by two Brits for the entire campaign, these being Harry Tincknell - Aston’s most recent 24 Hour of Le Mans class winner who hails from the company’s homeland - and his compatriot Tom Gamble. Meanwhile, the #009 sister car will be in the hands of Dane and triple FIA GT World Champion Marco Sørensen, as well as WEC LMGT3-class race-winner Alex Riberas, from Spain.
Over in the IMSA championship, Aston Martin THOR will only run one car, the #23, in the GTP class. Another British driver, Ross Gunn, will form one half of this duo along with 2022 GTD-class champion and Canadian ace Roman De Angelis. When it comes to Le Mans, however, Gunn and De Angelis will transfer over to the WEC teams to satisfy the three-driver line-ups required at the French epic, with Gunn completing an all-British team in the #007 car and De Angelis buddying up with Sørensen and Riberas in the #009.
How different is the race version of the Valkyrie to the road-going car?
It runs the same 6.5-litre, Cosworth-built, normally aspirated V12 in its midriff, but in order to meet racing regs it revs a lot lower and makes far less power than the road-going version, which spins out to 11,000rpm and churns out 1,000hp-plus. But there’s a power limit of 680hp in both the WEC and IMSA, so the V12 runs ‘leaner’ in race trim and slower, which brings its own endurance-racing benefits of reduced fuel consumption and greater long-haul reliability.
Adam Carter, Aston Martin’s head of endurance motorsport, explained: “By adhering to the Hypercar rules, the race car shares many strands of DNA with the road car, with the same V12 power unit at its heart.
“Running lean to reduce the amount of fuel you are carrying to deliver the required stint energy is important. We operate the engine slower than it’s capable of because we require less power. The lower power limit within the regulations creates an opportunity for us to revisit the torque curve and reduce frictional losses by reducing engine speed to increase fuel efficiency.”
In other regards, the Valkyrie road car was developed by Aston’s chief creative officer Marek Reichman and Adrian Newey, the Formula 1 aerodynamics mastermind who will be joining Aston Martin’s F1 team as managing technical partner in March 2025. So, the racing version has some tweaks but basically builds on the road-legal Valkyrie’s incredible set-up for aero, while further changes to the car overall include a single-point rapid refuelling coupling, a high-speed pneumatic jack incorporated into the chassis, and a driver-optimised cockpit with uprated safety, visibility and quick access methods.
The suspension in the Valkyrie race versions incorporates double wishbones front and rear, with pushrod-actuated torsion-bar springs with adjustable side and central dampers. As per the Hypercar rules for both WEC and IMSA, the Aston is fitted with the mandatory 18-inch Michelin Pilot Sport tyres, and it also runs an Xtrac seven-speed sequential transmission operated by semi-automatic paddle shift gear change.
And what do the team behind the Valkyrie race car say?
Ian James, the team principal of Aston Martin THOR, said: “For anybody that’s been involved in sportscar racing, to be running a car at the premier level with Aston Martin, and a car which is widely accepted as one of the most beautiful in the world - the only one that is the genuine progeny of a road car - is a real honour. To be entrusted with this programme is most definitely a career highlight.”
Carter added: “Of course, we only do it because we want to win. However, we respect the challenge of the events and the competition. They are at a high level, and that’s why we want to compete against them. Fundamentally, it is only worth winning if it’s against strong competition. We acknowledge that we will be joining them when they are already established. It’s an opportunity compete on the global stage in a fair and competitive environment.”
Since the Valkyrie Hypercar’s first test runs in July last year, THOR has put the machine through more than 15,000km of development distance at circuits including Donington Park, Silverstone, Vallelunga, Jerez, Bahrain, Qatar, Road Atlanta, Sebring and Daytona, in order to make sure it can compete strongly in both WEC and IMSA.
Following the WEC opener in Qatar, the two Valkyries in that series will compete in a further seven races - these being three European tracks in the form of Imola, Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans (the latter in June), before heading further afield to Interlagos (Brazil), Circuit of the Americas in Texas (US), Fuji (Japan) and then a finale in Bahrain in November.
The IMSA car will see its debut at the Sebring 12 Hours in early March, with an 11-round campaign also taking in Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, plus other major US racing venues such as Long Beach, Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Aston Martin Lagonda, said: “This is a proud moment for Aston Martin. To be returning to the fight for overall honours at the 24 Hours of Le Mans exists at the very core of our values and marks a key milestone in our motor racing heritage.
“As the only Hypercar born from the road to challenge at the top of sports car racing in both the WEC and IMSA, the Valkyrie is an embodiment of our enduring sporting ethos, one that has defined the brand for more than century.”
