Aston Martin Set to Return to 24 Hours of Le Mans with Valkyrie

• Aston Martin confirmed that it plans to enter the top class for the WEC and IMSA championships, which include the famous 24-hour races at Le Mans and Daytona.
• The race car Aston Martin will field will be based on track-only Valkyrie AMR Pro.
• The Le Mans-spec Valkyrie will join the competition in 2025, facing off against tough pack of Hypercar rivals.

Racing was always part of the plan for the Aston Martin Valkyrie. But early attempts to ready it for the proposed Hypercar endurance racing class were put on ice in 2020 shortly after Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll took a stake in the British sports car maker. His ownership of what was then the Racing Point F1 team, now Aston Martin Racing, effectively ended the original plans for the competition Valkyrie to be jointly developed with Formula 1 rivals Red Bull Racing.

In 2021 Aston reassured us that it still planned to take the Valkyrie racing and now, after a long wait, the company has confirmed that its hypercar will have the chance to earn motorsport glory. Starting in 2025, the Valkyrie will compete in the increasingly crowded Hypercar class in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and the IMSA WeatherTech Championship in the U.S., where the class is called GTP. The entries in both series will be run by the U.S.-based Heart of Racing team, with at least one car entering each round of both championships. This means the Valkyrie will race in three of the most famous endurance races in the world: the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Rolex 24 at Daytona, and 12 Hours of Sebring.

The track-only Valkyrie AMR Pro was originally designed to satisfy WEC's LMH regulations for the Hypercar class. These were later joined by IMSA's LMDh regulations, where competitors choose a chassis from one of four constructors and use a high percentage of off-the-shelf components to minimize costs. But since the Hypercar and GTP classes are open to both LMH and LMDh cars, Aston Martin will keep the racing Valkyrie as an LMH entrant. That gives more freedom in design, but it also stipulates that the hybrid system must add at least some power to the front axle. Since the Valkyrie road car’s electric assistance is sent entirely to the rear