The new Aston Martin Valkyrie GTP racer is just the brand’s third attempt at building a top-flight endurance racing sports car since 1989. Last weekend marked the car’s first test sessions at Daytona International Raceway with factory-supported Heart Of Racing’s one-car entry and, while it was a preliminary event for a brand new car and it sounded fantastic, it didn’t look particularly quick. It isn’t looking quite as dire as the much maligned Aston AMR-One effort of 2011, but it’s not much better, either.
If you can, recall back 13 years to the AMR-One and its extremely short-lived attempt at racing in the LMP1 category. Aston Martin Racing and Prodrive developed a brand new high-beltline low-weight open cockpit LMP1 effort to race against Audi and Peugeot in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (which would become the current World Endurance Championship.) The Aston’s turbocharged straight six was no match for the French and German diesels, however. After a dismal first outing at the 6 Hours of Le Castellet, the AMR-One qualified 22nd and 25th for the 2011 Le Mans 24, four seconds per lap slower than the leading LMP2, and 20 seconds per lap slower than the polesitting Audi R18 TDI. After both AMR-One chassis failed out of Le Mans in the first hour, the effort was completely scrapped and the cars were sold off to be turned into the infamous Deltawing.
Aston Martin’s last effort at building a prototype might be a preview of the new Valkyrie’s ignominious racing debut next January at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Remember that Aston initially committed to the Le Mans Hypercar class back in 2019 with plans to enter two factory Valkyrie and two further privateer entries for the 2021 season. The project was then cancelled when Lawrence Stroll pushed Aston to buy into Formula One instead. So while Aston Martin has been waffling about bringing the street-based Hypercar to the race track, the competition from Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Acura, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Toyota, and Peugeot have been on track for two seasons worth of wheel-to-wheel competition.
Across four sessions of pre-season testing at Daytona over the weekend the new Aston Martin is proving itself to be seriously behind the eight ball. With a single car in the GTP category, Heart Of Racing drivers Ross Gunn, Alex Riberas, and Roman De Angelis found themselves driving the slowest car in the class. The car’s fastest lap, a 1:37.169, was run in the fourth session of the day. That time put the team about a second and a half per lap behind the fastest Meyer Shank Racing Acuras, and just a couple of tenths quicker than the Crowdstrike Racing LMP2 class leaders.
During the two days of testing the Aston Martin team managed to put up just 258 laps of testing. That falls short of the 487 laps that the Penske Porsche number 6 managed. It was among the lowest laps turned by any of the cars in the test.
As a long-time endurance racing fanatic, I obviously understand that this is the car’s first official test, and it’s entirely possible that the Valkyrie will develop into an impressive and competitive racer. It’s worth keeping in mind that this car is the only one on the GTP grid without a hybrid powertrain, the only one to be based on a street car instead of a bespoke prototype chassis, and alongside the Cadillacs a rare non-turbocharged engine. I am fairly confident this car will not be competitive in its first outing, or perhaps even its first season.
This new car does sound really good, though, and more race cars should have 6.5-liter naturally-aspirated V12s. I just hope Aston doesn’t give up on this car after one poor showing like it did the AMR-One. Maybe Adrian Newey can spend a bit of the off-season developing the car’s evolution aero package for the 2026 season.