It was the summer of 2019 when Aston Martin first announced its plan to build a hypercar under the LMH rules of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The intention was to participate in the championship starting from 2021, but only next year will the Valkyrie line up on the starting grid of the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
A lot has happened since Aston first expressed ambitions to return to the pinnacle of sportscar racing after a hiatus of more than a decade.
Firstly, the creation of the LMDh formula compromised Aston's plans to base its LMH model on the road-going Valkyrie. Then, the LMH regulations were changed as part of the convergence process between WEC and IMSA, which forced Toyota and Peugeot to modify their Hypercars, debuting in 2021 and midway through the 2022 season.
Finally there was the small matter of the acquisition of Aston Martin Lagonda by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll, which marked the start of a new chapter in the history of the British brand.
Under the new ownership, Aston began to focus more on its new Formula 1 team, a separate entity owned by Stroll, leaving the Hypercar program on the back burner.
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Photo by: Aston Martin
This means that the Valkyrie project was initially pushed back to 2020, before being put on hold indefinitely.
Although Aston never officially confirmed that the program was shelved, it was widely known that the brand had decided internally to scuttle its Le Mans return plans.
For a long time it seemed that Aston Martin would miss out on the new golden era of sportscar racing, along with its former LMP1 rival Audi.
That was until the end of last year, when the program was relaunched by Aston Martin and its flagship GT team, Heart of Racing, with the aim of participating in both the WEC and IMSA in 2025.
A significant change from the original plan for 2019 was the abandonment of road cars, with Aston now building a bespoke Hypercar under current LMH rules.
This means that the new Valkyrie LMH which will compete at both Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona next year will not be developed on the basis of the production model of the same name, but on the Valkyrie AMR Pro, a track-only supercar that incorporates the technology of LMH model born previously and then died.
This is an interesting choice by Aston Martin, allowing it to accelerate the development of the car and catch up with the competition, which will have a head start of several years when it makes its IMSA and WEC debut in 2025.
Multiple entities are involved in the design, development and testing of the Valkyrie LMH. These include the Prodrive/Aston Martin Racing team, the new Aston Martin Performance Technologies division and the US team Heart of Racing, which has already achieved many successes with the Vantage GT3 in the IMSA series.
The team has also partnered with Multimatic's European arm, which will give it access to several engineers from the Ford GT program for the 2016-19 period.
Multimatic is also heavily involved in the development and operation of the Porsche 963 LMDh, which can only benefit Aston as it prepares for one of its most ambitious racing car projects in history.
Aston has started work from a new workshop in Brackley, which is located right next to Multimatic's offices and a short drive from Silverstone's F1/Performance Technologies divisions.
With a hiring spree expected through the end of the year, Aston expects to have the workforce needed to deliver an LMH program.
Asked what the latest updates are on the hypercar project, Heart of Racing team boss Ian James told Motorsport.com: “We've had a test car that's done a bit of testing. We're starting building the team. We recently rented premises in Brackley, UK for the WEC programme, alongside Multimatic Europe.”
#27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3: Ian James
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
“We will be working in collaboration with Multimatic Europe and a couple of key people from that programme, which dates back to the Ford GT days, will be involved. You will soon see the famous engineer George-Howard Chappel in the Heart of Racing colours, and then we will grow the group from five or six core people to 35-40 in the next nine months.”
Aston began its testing program at the beginning of January by putting the Valkyrie AMR Pro on track at Silverstone. Over the coming months the British brand will continue to trial further developments on the test car, before a more definitive version of the LMH that will race in Hypercar and GTP is ready for testing.
Aston plans to complete up to 15,000km of testing before Daytona next January, but is aware it faces hard work to make up the deficit against the historic manufacturers.
“We will do all the tests we can. Everything is scheduled right now. If all goes well, by mid-year we will have a car on the track that will be very close to what will be the final car.”
“We will try to do between 10 and 15 thousand kilometers in view of next season. Obviously we will never be able to make up for lost time compared to other manufacturers, but even in this case the car will arrive quickly.”
Heart of Racing will also play a crucial role in the project, especially thanks to a cutting-edge simulator that will help accelerate the development of the car.
Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
“We have a close relationship with Aston Martin Lagonda. Obviously being the factory team is a great honor, but even at this stage we are already involved. We are very lucky to have a constantly updated system in Phoenix in our workshop.”
“We are already modeling the car and will begin testing in the virtual world. In fact, we are walking hand in hand the whole way.”
Long-time Aston Martin driver Darren Turner was tasked with running the car's first miles and laying the foundations of the LMH programme.
So far, no dedicated drivers have been assigned to the development of the project, but the Aston roster already includes some prominent names who will likely be part of the race lineup.
Danish duo Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim are obviously considered among the candidates, while Ross Gunn and Jonny Adam could also be in contention.
“Darren Turner has done some initial testing with the test car. He won't be one of the drivers who will race, but he is a man of Heart of Racing and Aston Martin Racing.”
“He did some simple calibration work and things like that, then we will definitely see some guys from Heart of Racing and the factory team taking turns in the development phases.”
#WEC #Here39s #preparation #Aston #Martin #LMH #stands
