The brand new Aston Martin Valkyrie GTP racer is simply the model’s third try at constructing a top-flight endurance racing sports activities automotive since 1989. Final weekend marked the automotive’s first check classes at Daytona Worldwide Raceway with factory-supported Coronary heart Of Racing’s one-car entry and, whereas it was a preliminary occasion for a model new automotive and it sounded improbable, it didn’t look significantly fast. It isn’t trying fairly as dire because the a lot maligned Aston AMR-One effort of 2011, however it’s not significantly better, both.
In the event you can, recall again 13 years to the AMR-One and its extraordinarily short-lived try at racing within the LMP1 class. Aston Martin Racing and Prodrive developed a model new high-beltline low-weight open cockpit LMP1 effort to race towards Audi and Peugeot within the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (which might turn out to be the present World Endurance Championship.) The Aston’s turbocharged straight six was no match for the French and German diesels, nonetheless. After a dismal first outing on the 6 Hours of Le Castellet, the AMR-One certified twenty second and twenty fifth for the 2011 Le Mans 24, 4 seconds per lap slower than the main LMP2, and 20 seconds per lap slower than the polesitting Audi R18 TDI. After each AMR-One chassis failed out of Le Mans within the first hour, the trouble was utterly scrapped and the vehicles have been bought off to be became the notorious Deltawing.
Aston Martin’s final effort at constructing a prototype is perhaps a preview of the brand new Valkyrie’s ignominious racing debut subsequent January at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Keep in mind that Aston initially dedicated to the Le Mans Hypercar class again in 2019 with plans to enter two manufacturing unit Valkyrie and two additional privateer entries for the 2021 season. The challenge was then cancelled when Lawrence Stroll pushed Aston to purchase into Formulation One as a substitute. So whereas Aston Martin has been waffling about bringing the street-based Hypercar to the race observe, the competitors from Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Acura, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Toyota, and Peugeot have been on observe for 2 seasons value of wheel-to-wheel competitors.
Throughout 4 classes of pre-season testing at Daytona over the weekend the brand new Aston Martin is proving itself to be severely behind the eight ball. With a single automotive within the GTP class, Coronary heart Of Racing drivers Ross Gunn, Alex Riberas, and Roman De Angelis discovered themselves driving the slowest automotive within the class. The automotive’s quickest lap, a 1:37.169, was run within the fourth session of the day. That point put the staff a couple of second and a half per lap behind the quickest Meyer Shank Racing Acuras, and simply a few tenths faster than the Crowdstrike Racing LMP2 class leaders.
Throughout the two days of testing the Aston Martin staff managed to place up simply 258 laps of testing. That falls in need of the 487 laps that the Penske Porsche quantity 6 managed. It was among the many lowest laps turned by any of the vehicles within the check.
As a long-time endurance racing fanatic, I clearly perceive that that is the automotive’s first official check, and it’s completely doable that the Valkyrie will turn into a formidable and aggressive racer. It’s value maintaining in thoughts that this automotive is the one one on the GTP grid with out a hybrid powertrain, the one one to be based mostly on a road automotive as a substitute of a bespoke prototype chassis, and alongside the Cadillacs a uncommon non-turbocharged engine. I’m pretty assured this automotive is not going to be aggressive in its first outing, or maybe even its first season.
This new automotive does sound actually good, although, and extra race vehicles ought to have 6.5-liter naturally-aspirated V12s. I simply hope Aston doesn’t quit on this automotive after one poor exhibiting prefer it did the AMR-One. Possibly Adrian Newey can spend a little bit of the low season creating the automotive’s evolution aero package deal for the 2026 season.
