Aston Martin shows off Le Mans-ready Valkyrie hypercar as it aims for second-ever outright victory
Adrian Newey-designed machine will compete in top-flight European and American championships
Aston Martin has unveiled its Valkyrie hypercar that will head to Le Mans this summer aiming for outright victory in the most famous endurance race in the world.
The Adrian Newey-designed Valkyrie AMR Pro racer, which is based on the road-going version from the pen of the same visionary engineer, will compete in the full FIA World Endurance Championship (Wec), as well as on the other side of the Atlantic in the Imsa WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The Valkyrie is the only road-derived hypercar to compete in both series this season.
The highlight of the calendar will of course be the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes place from Saturday, June 14 to Sunday, June 15, where the Aston Martin Thor Team will run two Valkyries, numbered 007 and 009.
Appropriately, the Aston Martin Valkyrie 007 car — a clear reference to the codename of fictional British secret agent James Bond — will be driven by a trio of British drivers: Harry Tincknell, Ross Gunn and Tom Gamble.
Its sister car will be piloted by Roman De Angelis, a driver from Aston Martin chairman Lawrence Stroll’s native Canada, as well as Marco Sørensen, a Dane, and Alex Riberas, from Spain.
De Angelis and Gunn will also team up to drive the single “23” car in the North American Imsa series, which kicks off at Sebring, Florida, next month.
Aston Martin has only won the Le Mans 24 Hours once in its history — in 1959 with a DBR1 model raced by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby (the American driver who went on to found performance car company Shelby-American, turning the AC Ace into the Shelby Cobra and earning four consecutive Le Mans victories as a team boss, from 1966-1969, with the legendary Ford GT40).
Aston has been a stalwart of endurance racing for many years, but competing for class wins in the GT categories, rather with Le Mans prototypes that have the potential for outright victory, and achieved 19 class wins since the first race in 1923. In total, more than 240 drivers have raced Aston Martins at Le Mans over the past 95 years, in 27 different chassis and engine combinations, through virtually every era/
In 2021, the top flight LMP1 category was replaced by a more affordable one called Le Mans Hypercar (LMH), along with an even less costly category, called LMDh, for cars with the same 670bhp maximum power output but an off-the-shelf chassis and a mandatory hybrid system. The Aston Martin Valkyrie was always designed with LMH rules in mind.
It was the introduction of the Hypercar classes that attracted many manufacturers back into competing for outright wins at Le Mans, including Ferrari, Peugeot, BMW and Cadillac, with Lamborghini entering LMDh in 2024.
“This is a proud moment for Aston Martin,” said Aston Martin Lagonda’s chief executive officer, Adrian Hallmark. “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 a century.”
The Valkyrie was designed by Aston Martin chief creative officer Marek Reichman and F1 industry legend Adrian Newey, who will officially join the Aston Martin F1 team (from Red Bull Racing) in March. The aerodynamically-optimised hypercar features a high-revving 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine and a carbon-fibre chassis.
However, while the standard, road-going Valkyrie’s V12 produces more than 1,000bhp and spins at up to 11,000rpm, the endurance car’s power output is limited to 680bhp by the competition rules.
Although the engine was built for a high-performance vehicle anyway, Aston Martin has made adjustments to ensure the engine can maintain the performance required in high-level endurance racing competition. It also has to be efficient, in order to reduce the number of fuel stops required during a race.
And the bodywork has changed to meet the regulations, too, with quick-change bumpers, a single-point rapid refuelling coupling and a cockpit adapted to help it reach the safety standards required for racing. The chassis also now has built-in pneumatic jacks to lift the car up for tyre changes.
Elsewhere, Aston Martin has kitted the car out with the mandatory 18in wheels and Michelin Pilot Sport tyres required by the regulations, while there’s double-wishbone suspension at the front and rear, with pushrod-actuated torsion bar springs and adjustable side and central dampers.
The car has been tested by the Thor (The Heart of Racing) team over 15,000km (9,320 miles) at tracks including Donington Park, Silverstone and Jerez, as well as Vallelunga, Bahrain, Qatar, Road Atlanta and Daytona.
The 007 and 009 cars that will contest the full Wec season, with driver pairings Tincknell/ Gamble and Sørensen/ Riberas, will head to Qatar for the competition’s first round later this month, wearing a classic green livery. A car numbered “23”, with Gunn and De Angelis at the wheel, will sport the Thor team’s blue livery in the Imsa competition at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
“The Aston Martin Valkyrie is not just a hypercar; it is a revolution in automotive engineering history representing the pinnacle of performance, design and innovation,” claimed Aston Martin’s head of endurance motorsport, Adam Carter.
“With an extraordinary fusion of F1 technology and road car mastery, Valkyrie is truly built for racing and its participation in the highest level of world endurance racing will only further cement its technological achievement.”
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- If you were interested in Aston Martin’s motor sport plans for 2025, you may want to read our review of the new Aston Martin Vanquish
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