Aston Martin lock in the Valkyrie Hypercar for WEC/IMSA

Aston Martin have confirmed that the Valkyrie Hypercar will do as it was born to do, and enter the World Endurance Championship and IMSA in 2025.

Aston Martin was one of the original manufacturers to confirm its hand to join the new era of the WEC hypercar in 2021, before leaving in protest at the announcement that the LMDh spec hypercar would also join in 2023.

The British manufacturer has also declared its hand for new GT3 and GT4 homologated racers for 2024, and as it stands, will be the only manufacturer present in both F1 and and in all forms of global endurance racing, with the Heart of Racing running the on-track program.

The Valkyrie will join the WEC and IMSA championships in the 2025 season

It now means that the new top-flight hypercar era will feature competition between Ferrari, Toyota, Peugeot, Alpine, Porsche, Cadillac, Lamborghini, BMW, Honda-Acura, Aston Martin, and Isotta Fraschini, with the futures of Vanwall and Glickenhaus still up in the air.

Based on the road going hypercar, the Valkyrie AMR Pro was originally designed and developed to meet the LMH hypercar specs, meaning it enjoys complete freedom of design, whereas the LMDh racers are limited to chassis choice, hybrid unit, battery, and gear system.

It will also be the only LMH or LMDh machine that can trace its roots back to a road going production hypercar.

It now will work to meet the homologation specs for WEC and IMSA, with the cars non-hybrid system featuring a normally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 Cosworth engine capable of hitting 11,000 rpm and 1,000 hp, which will need to meet the WEC and IMSA of a maximum of 671bhp.

Executive Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda, Lawrence Stroll, says that returning to Le Mans at the peak of endurance racing is a vital step for the Silverstone based manufacturer.

“Performance is the lifeblood of everything that we do at Aston Martin, and motorsport is the ultimate expression of this pursuit of excellence,” Stroll said. 

“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. 

“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.”

Based on the Vantage platform, the new GT3 and GT4 cars will be made to conform to new and existing GT rule-sets, which includes the WEC’s new LMGT3 category for 2024.

The new GT Challengers will replace the Vantage across all endurance platforms in 2024

The new GT Challenger, which will run in both WEC, IMSA, and the SRO-run GT World Challenge Series’, will be available for customer racing teams at the start of the ’24 season.

It brings an end to the Vantage, which has proved to be the manufacturers most successful racing car after debuting in 2018.

Adam Carter, Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport, said that the Valkyrie and the GT Challengers will put the Silverstone team into a new era.

“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for Aston Martin in endurance racing. As a manufacturer, Aston Martin has a consistent record of success at world championship level and, through the efforts of the Heart of Racing, also now in IMSA,” Carter said.

“Valkyrie takes us back into the top tier of sportscar racing and, together with our partners we are absolutely confident that we can deliver a race car with the potential and the performance capabilities to fight alongside the benchmark machinery in the class.

“By also confirming Aston Martin’s commitment to a new GT3 and GT4 challenger, we signal our intent to compete for victory at all levels of sportscar racing now and well into the future.”

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