After one of the longest will they/won’t they periods in motorsport, Aston Martin has finally whipped the covers off its Valkyrie Hypercar ready for the 2025 season.
Valkyrie was the car largely expected to form the archetype of the proposed Le Mans Hypercar class when first proposed back in 2017 but, having signalled intent to race from day one in 2020, the marque withdrew.
Aston Martin cited several reasons, including wanting to focus on F1 under new owner Lawrence Stroll, but also flagged the dilution of the class to allow for cars racing in the IMSA series in the USA to participate in the category under “LMDh” regulations.
It’s some small irony then that Valkyrie will campaign in both the 2025 FIA World Endurance championship and the 2025 IMSA Sportscar Championship, becoming the first LMH car — alongside the LMDh BMW, Cadillac, Lamborghini, and Porsche — to run both series simultaneously.
Le Mans is the primary goal however, with Aston Martin ramming that point home by lining the Valkyrie Hypercar up alongside the brand’s last (and only) overall winner in the race for the press shots: the 1959 Aston Martin DBR1.
Naturally, Valkyrie has had to be adapted to satisfy the LMH regulations and will be markedly less powerful than the original road car as designed by Adrian Newey — as a collaboration with Red Bull, before his move to Aston Martin this year — and Marek Reichmann.
It will, however, employ the same Cosworth-designed, 6.5-liter V12 as the road car, though with the wick turned down to meet the 500kW (670hp) category cap. Aston describes it as a “modified, lean-burn version” of the engine, designed to keep the car’s performance where it’s expected while running the required long distances on as little fuel as possible.
Aston Martin and official team partner The Heart of Racing have been testing the car over the last six months, racking up almost 10,000 miles before today’s unveiling.
This campaign has taken in nine circuits, aiming for a cross-section of courses either on the WEC/IMSA calendar or as similar representative locations, covering Bahrain, Daytona, Donington Park, Jerez, Qatar, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Silverstone, and Vallelunga.
Three cars will run in the two series, with a single blue machine driven by Ross Gunn and Roman de Angelis in the 2025 IMSA GTP category from Sebring onwards. Gunn will join Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble in the green #007, with de Angelis alongside Alex Riberas and Marco Sorensen in the #009, for the WEC campaign from the very first round in Qatar.
Aston Martin’s entry means that eight different brands will race in the top class at Le Mans this year, with the aforementioned marques — less Lamborghini, which is skipping WEC in 2025 — being joined by Alpine, Ferrari, Peugeot, and Toyota.
That will increase to at least nine in 2026 with the Genesis GMR-001, and potentially ten if Lamborghini can get its customer program off the ground. Ford recently announced its ambition to return in 2027 with a new car, and McLaren is also eyeing up its own entry too. With most running two cars, that could mean more than a third of the grid will be racing in the top category by 2028.
The 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship will get underway in Qatar at the end of this month, while the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship has already staged its first round but will continue with the Astons at Sebring in mid-March.
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