Aston Martin to compete in Hypercar with The Heart of Racing

From 2025, British marque Aston Martin intends to field at least one Valkyrie in partnership with The Heart of Racing team in both the FIA WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which include the three highest regarded international sportscar races: the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

A prototype version of the Valkyrie

Aston Martin Performance Technologies has begun development of a Valkyrie prototype to meet the specifications in terms of aerodynamics and power required for racing. The goal is to obtain homologation for the FIA WEC Hypercar and IMSA GTP classes for the 2025 season.
The car’s non-hybrid system will feature a normally-aspirated 6.5-litre V12 Cosworth engine packing a mighty 11,000 rpm and 1,000 hp within a race-primed carbon fibre structure. In line with the Hypercar balance of performance rules, the powertrain will be perfected and developed to stand up to the challenges of endurance racing.

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

Founded in 2014 by American businessman Gabe Newell, The Heart of Racing charity aids the Seattle Children's Cardiology Research Fund. The racing team was set up in 2020 and competes in collaboration with Aston Martin, running the Vantage GT3 in the IMSA GTD class. This year The Heart of Racing team – Ian James (team manager), Darren Turner, Marco Sørensen and Roman de Angelis – won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 7th place in the LMGTE Am class with the Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

Ian James, The Heart of Racing Team Principal, said: “It’s a privilege to be able to bring Aston Martin back to the top of endurance racing with The Heart of Racing. Our team has grown exponentially since we began racing with those famous wings at Daytona in 2020. We understand and are aligned with the ethos of the brand and we have developed our own systems and technologies to extract the maximum performance of the cars we compete with. Our understanding of Valkyrie is strong and we have worked closely with it through our customer activation programmes for two years now. This HoR team has big ambitions in endurance racing and this is absolutely the right time for us to step into the top classes of WEC and IMSA and challenge for overall honours. This is not an easy target, but between our partners and the support of Aston Martin Performance Technologies, it is one we have all the tools and capabilities in place to hit the bullseye with.”

Aston Martin joins a host of major manufacturers in the 2025 FIA WEC Hypercar class, namely Ferrari, Toyota, Cadillac, Porsche, Lamborghini, BMW, Peugeot and Alpine.

Aston Martin also announced the construction of its new GT3 and GT4 cars based on the Vantage platform. The cars will comply with existing GT rules, including LMGT3, which will replace LMGTE Am from 2024. They will be available for current and future Aston Martin customer teams.

We look forward to seeing the Aston Martin Valkyrie on track. In the meantime, admire its style in the gallery below.