The Valkyrie returns Aston Martin to top-level Le Mans competition

In the summer of 2016, sometime between the UK voting to leave the EU and Rio de Janeiro hosting the Olympics, Aston Martin published an image of a spaceship-like concept car called the AM-RB 001. It was bold, radical and unlike anything we’d come to expect from the manufacturer more closely associated with suave spies and sporting grand tourers.

Forged in the fires of Formula One, the Valkyrie – as the project would later be named – was the brainchild of seasoned racing car designer, aerodynamicist and former Red Bull Racing chief technology officer Adrian Newey, back when the carmaker had ties to Red Bull F1 team.

Now, nearly a decade since the Valkyrie was first announced, things have changed: Newey’s jumped ship from Red Bull to be managing technical partner for Aston’s F1 team and the once-pipe-dream Valkyrie is on the grid, ready for its greatest challenge yet.

Returning Aston Martin to the very top level of the gruelling 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Valkyrie builds on Aston’s enviable heritage in endurance racing: with no fewer than 19 class victories at Le Mans and a legendary overall triumph in the 1959 race with the DBR1 driven by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby.

‘It would be almost unimaginable for Adrian Newey to design a car and not think about it going racing at some point,’ says Adam Carter, Aston Martin’s head of endurance motorsport. ‘With an extraordinary fusion of F1 technology and road car mastery, the Valkyrie is truly built for racing.’

Unlike the rest of the Le Mans grid, the Valkyrie is the only car competing in the top-level Le Mans Hypercar category that is based on a road-going vehicle. Manufacturers with motorsport arms are all too keen to perpetuate the ‘race-to-road’ story – the tale of how the cutting-edge technology powering their racing machines trickles down to more pedestrian cars. It’s been the playbook for carmakers involved in everything from F1 to rally for decades. For Aston, it’s the other way around.

After the production Valkyrie made its debut in 2017, it was as a road car – not a racer. Only the following year did Aston release a track-only Valkyrie AMR Pro concept, which hinted at the brand’s ambitions to take it racing, which came to fruition earlier this year, at the start of the 2025 World Endurance Championship.

When it comes to this year’s Le Mans title contender, the Valkyrie AMR-LMH, the racing variant packs a less-powerful version of the mighty Cosworth-built 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine, which in standard form revs to 11,000rpm and develops over 1,000 bhp.

It also loses the road car’s battery-electric hybrid system, with the naturally aspirated V12 in the racing car kicking out just 671 bhp (329bhp less than the road car), owing to the race series ‘balance of power’ rules, which are designed to keep the racing competitive and control the eyewatering developmental costs of top-level endurance racing.

‘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, ahead of the race. ‘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.’

Le Mans is as close to a festival as you can get in motorsport, with the whole circus lasting for the best part of a week. Dazed fans, dressed head to toe in team kit from all eras, camp and wander around the 13.626km Circuit de la Sarthe, a historic track cut through the French countryside and in use – in various configurations – since 1906.

For almost all of the week, the air is filled with the constant drone of engines – low rumbles from V8s, high-pitched wheezes from hybrids and, as of this year, the unmistakable sound of the Valkyrie’s V12.

In the 24-degree Celsius heat of the race this year, there was something special about seeing a modified road car take on a field of otherwise alien-looking racing cars. The rest of the Hypercar class was made up of prototypes, styled purely for function, that bear little resemblance to the road cars that share their badges.

While it was Ferrari’s spaceship-like 499P that took the flag at the end of the 24 hours, the #007 Valkyrie (well, this is Aston) and the #009 car finished 12th and 14th without major issues, and that’s pretty much a win in any team’s eyes after racing day and night, non-stop.

‘It's a great result for the team, a huge milestone for the programme,’ said Carter after the race. ‘We come to Le Mans and the WEC because it's hard, because we want to fight against the best. We need to improve our performance, we are racers and we want to be more competitive.’

While the Valkyries failed to pull off a fairytale victory for Aston on their debut – something the equally impressive McLaren F1 road car miraculously managed in 1995 – they’ve laid strong foundations for the Valkyrie’s motorsport credentials, both in and outside of official competition.

In the days leading up to the race, Aston pulled the covers off just ten Le Mans-ready Valkyries that are available to private owners. With no word on price, it’s easy to imagine the LM’s weighing in at several million apiece for what the marque bills as the ‘ultimate Le Mans Hypercar track experience’.

For the vast majority, we’ll have to be satisfied enough with seeing this mastery of mechanical engineering finally make it out on track and do what it was born to do nearly a decade ago. ‘Valkyrie is the ultimate expression of [Aston Martin’s] competitive mindset,’ said Carter. ‘And it has its roots founded in world-beating car design.’

AstonMartin.com