Aston Valkyrie AMR-LMH hits track for first time

Is there a race car we’re more excited about than the incoming Valkyrie AMR-LMH? No, there isn’t. Granted, the Hypercar regulations have already produced some spectacular entrants, but the original promise of production-based variants (suggesting a new ‘win on Sunday, buy on Monday’ mentality) has not exactly come to pass. The Valkyrie is obviously different in that it was a customer car first, albeit a bonkers, ear defenders-on kind of effort (which is surely what you want from a hypercar). So the race car enjoys an ‘oow look’ pedigree that most of its rivals don’t. 

Also, it comes with the enlivening prospect of a duck-and-cover soundtrack. Alongside a ‘race-optimised’ chassis. The Valkyrie AMR-LMH gets a ‘modified, lean-burning’ version of the Cosworth-built 6.5-litre V12 – an engine which is a) naturally aspirated, b) capable of revving to 11,000rpm and c) develops over 1000hp in ‘standard’ format. Needless to say, Aston has been busy fettling the unit to withstand endurance racing and ‘meet the performance window of the Hypercar class’ – but if the result doesn’t sound epic, we’ll eat our PH-branded lunch boxes. 

Anyone living within earshot of Silverstone will likely be able to confirm this one way or another as Aston Martin Performance Technologies – and the Valkyrie’s works team, The Heart of Racing – has evidently been busy this month putting the car through its paces on track for the first time ahead of FIA homologation in the autumn. 

“The first runs for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH have been an immensely proud moment in the programme. 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,” commented The Heart of Racing Team Principal Ian James. 

“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.”

This is good to hear because its maker’s targets for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH could hardly be more ambitious: not only is it expected to be the first Hypercar to race simultaneously in the WEC and IMSA next year (rounding out Aston’s presence in all aspects of endurance racing), it is also primed with a singular, weightier vision – to be the firm’s first outright Le Mans 24hrs winner since 1959. And we all know how hard that is. Which is yet another reason to get excited about a car that has been a long time coming…