Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar has appeared in public for the first time, with testing getting underway at the Donnington Park circuit in the UK.
Due to make its competition debut in 2025, running in both the WEC and IMSA series, the car is unique amongst its peers in that it is based on a roadgoing (albeit very low-volume) model. Aston Martin, alongside The Heart of Racing team, will now commence a full development schedule to prepare the car ahead of FIA homologation in the autumn.
Adam Carter, Aston Martin head of endurance motorsport, said, “The Valkyrie AMR-LMH sets its own standard as a thoroughbred endurance competition car. It is a pure, leading-edge racing machine, and while it is very early in the testing cycle, from what we have witnessed so far, we are satisfied that it is achieving the targets and criteria we have set out for it to accomplish.”
The Heart of Racing recently established a UK team headquarters for its WEC program, near to where the racing cars are being constructed in cooperation with Aston Martin Performance Technologies, based at Silverstone. Multimatic is also heavily involved in the development of the car, having been responsible for much of the work on the road and track day variants of the Valkyrie. The Heart of Racing team is overseeing the development and test program of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH, which will move from the UK to European circuits through the summer as performance evaluation becomes the priority.
The Heart of Racing team principal Ian James commented, “The first runs for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH have been an immensely proud moment in the program. The birth of this project has been a couple of years in the making, so to get it to the track and to see it going around in the flesh, feels momentous for The Heart of Racing. We’re looking forward to the journey ahead – it’s a steep hill to climb for everyone involved in this project. We are at the pinnacle of sportscar racing, the competitors are formidable, and they have been doing it a long time. Some of them have endless resources. We know we are going up against the best, so we intend to represent Aston Martin at the same level. I believe, from what we have seen so far, and with the DNA of where this car came from, I think we have the right tools to be able to do this successfully.”
