Aston Martin Valkyrie

It’s happening: the Aston Martin Valkyrie will race Le Mans in 2025

Several years later than billed, Aston will battle Ferrari, Toyota and several others for Hypercar glory. At last

This is how you lead by example: in the same week it encouraged owners to drive their Valkyries and not make museum pieces of them, Aston has confirmed that it will attempt to drive one as far as physically possible in 24 hours in 2025. Yup, the Valkyrie is going to Le Mans!

Almost four years after it backtracked out of plans to enter the Hypercar class, Aston has finally green-lighted its return to the top tier of endurance racing, promising to run at least one car in both the World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship across the pond.

That means it will compete for victory in Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring, with both WEC and IMSA programmes run by its partner Heart of Racing: the outfit began life in 2020 and has since racked up an IMSA title and a class win at Daytona with a Vantage GT3.

The Valkyrie will rub shoulders with Ferrari’s Le Mans winning 499P and several other contenders in the Hypercar category, including Toyota, Porsche, Peugeot, Glickenhaus and Cadillac, plus 2024 entrants Alpine and Lamborghini. The one-horse race era is truly over.

www.topgear.com

It’s happening: the Aston Martin Valkyrie will race Le Mans in 2025

Several years later than billed, Aston will battle Ferrari, Toyota and several others for Hypercar glory. At last
www.topgear.com www.topgear.com
 
In it to win it: Aston Martin returning to Le Mans with Valkyrie hypercar

Aston Martin will fight for overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2025 with a racing prototype of its Valkyrie hypercar, the British-based sportscar maker announced on Wednesday.

Backed by endurance partner Heart of Racing, Aston will enter at least one Valkyrie in the hypercar category of the FIA World Endurance Championship and US-based IMSA sportscar championship.

The two series include Le Mans, the Daytona 24 Hours and 12 Hours of Sebring.

"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," said Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda.

"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.

 
This is Fernando Alonso’s very own Aston Martin Valkyrie

Alonso takes delivery of his 1,139bhp hybrid hypercar. Will surely soon be calling for the V12’s return to F1

Fernando Alonso has taken delivery of his new 1,139bhp V12 engined Aston Martin Valkyrie, and we will now do our very best to resist the temptation to make jokes about it being faster than his current F1 car.

Alonso’s Valkyrie takes inspiration from said AMR24 race car, with Satin Aston Martin Racing Green paint and contrasting AMR Satin Lime graphics. The giant venturi tunnels at the rear get Speed Red, Light Blue and Dark Blue painted graphics too, and we’re told that there’s a bespoke ’CAUTION HOT’ graphic somewhere too. That may have been tempting fate a little though – a few videos of Alonso’s Valkyrie broken down in Monaco have circled on social media already. Whoops.

Still, it’s worth a bit more of a nosey at the spec to see what an F1 world champion picks when working with Q by Aston Martin. Like the roof and engine cover, the interior also gets plenty of exposed carbon fibre. There’s loads of black Alcantara in there too with lime stitching and Alonso’s own logo embroidered into the headrests.

There’s also apparently a red anodised aluminium accelerator pedal that’s etched with Alonso’s race number (14) although for some reason Aston failed to get a picture of that and the most exciting exterior graphic.


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