Aston Martin reveals first ever racing variant of its extreme Valkyrie hypercar

As noted in our recent interview with Aston Martin’s new CEO, Adrian Hallmark, 2025 marks the year that Aston Martin mounts a serious challenge on securing an overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Although the company has successfully campaigned at the legendary French endurance race in recent decades using its Vantage-derived World Endurance Racing cars, 2025’s campaign hopes to evoke the glorious achievement of 1959, when Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori took outright victory in the race in the Aston Martin DBR1.

The Valkryie was always intended as the translation of a pure racing car into road-going form. The engineer and aerodynamicist who conceived the car, Adrian Newey, alongside AM’s chief creative officer Marek Reichman, obsessively pared every detail and component down to the bare minimum dimension and mass, ensuring the car would have a power-to-weight ratio unlike any other.

Whilst there have already been track-only Valkyrie specials – aimed at customers who want the full fettled experience of the two-seater V12 with maximum aero and minimal fripperies – this is the first time the car has taken to the racetrack in anger. The only competitor in its class derived from a road-legal hypercar, the Valkyrie will be run by the Aston Martin THOR Team at Le Mans, 14-15 June 2025.

Alongside a car developed for the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) rules that govern Le Mans, The Heart of Racing works team are also running in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. THOR will run dual programmes, working alongside Aston Martin Performance Technologies for the eight-round WEC series and 11-round IMSA season.

The WEC driver line-up comprises Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell in the #007 car and the Triple FIA GT world champion Marco Sørensen with Alex Riberas in the #009 car, while IMSA champions Ross Gunn and Roman de Angelis will take on IMSA’s GTP challenge in North America. Gunn will also share the #007 car for the assault on Le Mans in June.

Before Le Mans, THOR’s two cars will debut at the opening round of the 2025 WEC, at the Qatar 1812km on 28 February. Amazingly, the Valkyrie has been down-tuned from its road-going output of 1,000bhp to cater for the race series’ power limit. This has benefits for both fuel efficiency and reliability, huge factors in endurance racing.

Other changes are obvious, not least in the massive aero packs that transform the Valkyrie’s bodywork, adding colossal downforce whilst also improving access to components and all-round safety. A rapid refuelling system, hydraulic jack point and revised suspension are all included.

In a nice piece of symmetry, Newey is returning to Aston Martin this summer as the managing technical partner of the Formula 1 team, giving him the perfect viewpoint to see the car he initiated take to the track. As Hallmark stresses, regardless of the result, ‘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,’ he concludes.

We’ll report from Le Mans in June.

AstonMartin.com, @AstonMartin