Aston Martin has confirmed that, at long last, it will enter a pair of its halo Valkyrie supercars into the Le Mans Hypercar category for the whole of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship — including the 24 Hours of Le Mans itself.
The company made the announcement on the eve of the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming that the brand will partner with its US-based works partner The Heart of Racing team to campaign a pair of the Valkyries across 2025. That follows a new category regulation announced today requiring at least two cars in LMH for each manufacturer entry.
It’s been a long time coming, with Aston Martin being one of the manufacturers consulted over the original Hypercar category rules as far back as 2017 as participation in the top, LMP1-H category dwindled.
After confirming its intentions to race the Valkyrie in the first season in 2020, Aston Martin ran into trouble and withdrew. It pointed at the decision to allow top category IMSA cars to enter under the LMDh regulations, but also stated an aim to focus on its impending Formula One participation — which saw Canadian clothing magnate Lawrence Stroll subsequently buying the company.
That robbed the grid of one of its most-anticipated cars, and one of very few intended entries derived from a road car per the original intent of the regulations. Along with other events of 2020, that saw the Hypercar class shrink to a small number of participants — only two with any aspirations to be a road car too — but that’s expanded again over the past couple of seasons.
The 2024 race, taking place this weekend, will see a record 23 entries in the Hypercar category. That’ll include defending champion Ferrari with the 499P, deposed champion Toyota and the GR010, the Porsche 963, Lamborghini’s SC63, BMW’s M Hybrid, the Cadillac V-Series.R, the revised Peugeot 9X8, Alpine’s new A424, and the underdog Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH-C.
Aston Martin still needs to homologate the Valkyrie AMR-LMH before it can be granted its full-season entry in the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship, and it remains to be seen how the car will be adapted for the series.
The “standard” Valkyrie employs a 6.5-liter, naturally aspirated V12 developed by Cosworth, which produces over 1,000hp. That’s considerably more than the maximum 630hp allowed by the LMH regulations, so it’s likely to be turned down quite a bit and may not hit the same 11,000rpm peak.
However, Aston Martin has confirmed that it is developing the engine further for the “rigours of top level long-distance competition”, and that — like the AMR Pro model — the powertrain will not feature the hybrid system of the regular car.
The program appears to be in a pretty advanced state, with on-track testing at Silverstone and Portimao completed recently and homologation expected in the autumn. If it races as expected in 2025, it’ll mark Aston Martin’s first appearance in the top class at Le Mans since the AMR-One in 2011.
As well as a full-season entry in WEC, The Heart of Racing will also campaign the AMR-LMH in the GTP category of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, presumably also starting in 2025.
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