Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Le Mans contender hits the track

Aston Martin has ripped the curtain off its future Le Mans weapon, the Valkyrie AMR-LMH, which made its track debut last week in the UK.

The hypercar beast, whose efforts in the World Endurance Championship and in the IMSA SportsCar Championship will be overseen by US outfit Heart of Racing, will roar on to the scene in 2025.

However, the team’s development and testing programme will soon kick off in earnest, after “shakedown and initial evaluation” runs were conducted at Silverstone and at Donington.

Behind the wheel last week were Aston Martin's own Darren Turner, Mario Farnbacher, a regular with Heart of Racing, and Harry Tincknell who works with Multimatic Motorsports, a big player in the Valkyrie project.

As a reminder, the Valkyrie is powered by a glorious-sounding Cosworth-developed 6.5-litre naturally-aspirated V12.

“The first runs for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH have been an immensely proud moment in the programme,” commented Heart of Racing team boss Ian James.

The birth of this project has been a couple of years in the making, so to get it to the track and to see it going around in the flesh, feels momentous for The Heart of Racing.

We’re looking forward to the journey ahead – it’s a steep hill to climb for everyone involved in this project. We know we are going up against the best, so we intend to represent Aston Martin at the same level.

“I believe, from what we have seen so far, and with the DNA of where this car came from, I think we have the right tools to be able to do this successfully.”