Aston’s New Valkyrie Race Car Will Pass Up the 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona

Deduct one GTP car from the starting lineup of the 2025 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in January. After last weekend’s test at the track, Aston Martin has decided they’d rather debut their all-new car at the first World Endurance Championship race in Qatar, about a month later than the January 25th-26th running of the Rolex 24.

After the Daytona test, where the car was clearly off the pace of the other class competitors, it seems likely that not only can Aston use the extra month of development time, but they’d prefer a shorter event for their first race with the new Valkyrie, which shares a name with the road-going supercar. As a result, the U.S. debut of the 6.5-liter, V-12-powered Valkyrie racer will be at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on March 15, the second race in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s 2025 season.

In an announcement made today, Aston Martin’s THOR team, which will operate the car on the WEC circuit, will debut at the Qatar 1812km on February 28. The announcement also confirmed two of the drivers who will be piloting the pair of Aston Martin Valkyrie race cars, which will carry the numbers 007 and 009: Harry Tincknell and Alex Riberas.

Tincknell, who has a class win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, moves over from the IMSA Ford Mustang GT3 program, while Riberas moves up from his job as the driver of the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 car, which he ran for the Heart of Racing team. Incidentally, Heart of Racing will field the Valkyrie GTP car when it arrives in IMSA.

“The Aston Martin Valkyrie is the most spectacular car I have ever driven, and it sounds amazing, so to be able to share it with the fans of motorsport all over the world is something I am very much looking forward to,” Riberas said.

Aston Martin notes that the Valkyrie will be the only race car built to the FIA’s Hypercar regulations to simultaneously contest both the WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech series in 2025. The Hypercar rules differ slightly from the ones that govern the IMSA GTP class. The specifications cover LMDh cars in IMSA, and LMH cars in WEC, which also includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans. IMSA and the WEC wrote the rules such that GTP cars should be able to compete on a level playing field with Hypercars. Confusing? It is, but the fans in the stands likely won’t know the difference.

Construction of the new Valkyrie race car will give Aston a shot at the overall victory at Le Mans next year for the first time since 1959.

Said Adam Carter, Aston Martin’s head of Endurance Motorsport: “We are reaching a critical juncture in the development of the Valkyrie, and to this point, the car has passed all of the objectives and benchmarks we have set for it. Testing is one thing however, going racing quite another, and we do not underestimate the formidable line-up of world-class competition in the WEC Hypercar class and in IMSA’s GTP category.”

“Aston Martin has an incredible history in sportscar racing and this is really a ‘pinch myself’ moment,” said driver Tincknell, whose class win at Le Mans came four years ago in an Aston Martin Vantage GTE. “Of course, I have great memories of Le Mans in 2020, and the aim is to repeat that feat with Valkyrie. It’s a dream come true.”