Valkyrie At Le Mans Back On
Discussion
Very cool. The fact AM is represented in GT, HyperCar and F1 is just cool.
I do wonder what the construction is. Who pays the bills? AML? HoR? Stroll? It doesnt really matter of course, well played Stroll for making it happen, but I am interested since the F1 team is private.
The car needs a big overhaul btw to meet BoP rules, on the engine side but also aero. Lets hope the V12 Cosworth can be competitive after that down tune.
I do wonder what the construction is. Who pays the bills? AML? HoR? Stroll? It doesnt really matter of course, well played Stroll for making it happen, but I am interested since the F1 team is private.
The car needs a big overhaul btw to meet BoP rules, on the engine side but also aero. Lets hope the V12 Cosworth can be competitive after that down tune.
The change from LMP1 (in the end, Toyota were almost racing against themselves) to Hypercar confused me.
I thought we were going to see recognisable limited edition hyper road cars.
When the race commenced the front running cars seem to all look almost the same as each other and very similar to the previous LMP1 and LMP2.
I suppose the answer is aerodynamics, but does having so many similar looking cars, spoil your viewing enjoyment ?
LMP1
Hypercar
Valkyrie Pro
BiggaJ said:
Hope it happens, but the cynic in me thinks it was a slow month in the marketing department and they needed to get some brand visibility with a story.
GingerMunky said:
Hope it happens, but the cynic in me thinks it was a slow month in the marketing department and they needed to get some brand visibility with a story.
They've had folks working on this for months, been waiting to hear the official announcement so have no doubt it will happen. Would probably have happened sooner if it hadn't been for the falling out with R Motorsport. I'd have liked to have seen it in WEC next year but with the IMSA season kicking off with Daytona, not much more the a year for development and testing. Plus the focus is probably on getting the new GT3 & 4 ready for 2024. https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/10/04/aston-ma...
TF going over to Corvette will be a big loss, lets hope they have somebody as well as HoR to take the cars into British GT, WC & NLS.
Every chance they'll get a 2 car entry for Le-Mans, good excuse to start making plans to attend.
Edited by Uncle Gueber on Thursday 5th October 20:43
I'm interesting in going back to Le Man to see this too. I've not been since '98 and Porsche's win with the GT1.
I'd love to see an era of road based hypercars slugging it out.
Insightful to see last years Ferrari covered no were near the distance of the previous 5 years of Toyota or the earlier 919s or Audis. Over 10% down, approx 4600km v 5200km, so quite a bit slower.
Still the greatest race.
I'd love to see an era of road based hypercars slugging it out.
Insightful to see last years Ferrari covered no were near the distance of the previous 5 years of Toyota or the earlier 919s or Audis. Over 10% down, approx 4600km v 5200km, so quite a bit slower.
Still the greatest race.
i thought it was fantastic news. AM really need to be seen mixing it with all the other big players in the sportscar and racing scene. Its such an iconic brand and has worldwide appeal. Being an avid motorsport fan, especially F1 and endurance racing it gives us someone to cheer on and the race cars look superb in Aston green.
The Valkyrie has always looked a shoe fit for Hyper car class racing and its great they intend to race in the states in IMSA as well as the European WEC series. Will be booking tickets for Le Mans again in 2025
Love it they announced a new GT4 and GT3 class car as well, they are certainly going 'all-in' for Motorsport over the coming years, just hope they have the strength to compete across all classes.
The Valkyrie has always looked a shoe fit for Hyper car class racing and its great they intend to race in the states in IMSA as well as the European WEC series. Will be booking tickets for Le Mans again in 2025
Love it they announced a new GT4 and GT3 class car as well, they are certainly going 'all-in' for Motorsport over the coming years, just hope they have the strength to compete across all classes.
MJ_V8V said:
Love it they announced a new GT4 and GT3 class car as well, they are certainly going 'all-in' for Motorsport over the coming years, just hope they have the strength to compete across all classes.
Does the Aston Martin GT3 and GT4 now purely involve customer teams, with most/all of the work handled by Prodrive at Banbury?
Presumably no outgoing running costs with that arrangement, for AML.
Has it been mentioned whether the Valkyrie racing will be contracted to an outside firm ?
I suppose the AMR ex-Racing Point business, will not be involved with Valkyrie racing.
The Valkyrie will be run by the Heart of Racing Endurance team for AMR. Guess they have the infra-structure and personnel with good racing experience to take it forward, though its a big step up from GT class racing. My fear is Aston are effectively joining the party 2 years down the line and thats a heck of a lot of advantage to the other manufacturers who will have a 2 year headstart in development and real world racing experience and setup information to rely on.
The Valkyrie will be at a big disadvantage for the first year until it gets 1000's of race miles under its belt. I think they should have entered a couple of the bigger events late next year for real world testing and race experience.
The GT cars i assume will continue under private entry teams, dont think any are classed as 'works' teams but may be wrong. Just great they are bringing out new models to race with, had feared their numbers would steadily decline with big teams like TF sport switching to Corvette next season. I watched the Fanatec GT round at Barcelona last weekend with something like 50-60 GT cars but not one Aston
so they need to increase their presence.
The Valkyrie will be at a big disadvantage for the first year until it gets 1000's of race miles under its belt. I think they should have entered a couple of the bigger events late next year for real world testing and race experience.
The GT cars i assume will continue under private entry teams, dont think any are classed as 'works' teams but may be wrong. Just great they are bringing out new models to race with, had feared their numbers would steadily decline with big teams like TF sport switching to Corvette next season. I watched the Fanatec GT round at Barcelona last weekend with something like 50-60 GT cars but not one Aston
so they need to increase their presence.MJ_V8V said:
The Valkyrie will be run by the Heart of Racing Endurance team for AMR. Guess they have the infra-structure and personnel with good racing experience to take it forward, though its a big step up from GT class racing. My fear is Aston are effectively joining the party 2 years down the line and thats a heck of a lot of advantage to the other manufacturers who will have a 2 year headstart in development and real world racing experience and setup information to rely on.
The Valkyrie will be at a big disadvantage for the first year until it gets 1000's of race miles under its belt. I think they should have entered a couple of the bigger events late next year for real world testing and race experience.
The Valkyrie will be at a big disadvantage for the first year until it gets 1000's of race miles under its belt. I think they should have entered a couple of the bigger events late next year for real world testing and race experience.
Thank you Mark.
You mention AMR (Lawrence Stroll's private business), so do we think AMLGH plc will not be involved financially.
LS has been so successful obtaining sponsors (that became easier after obtaining the free Aston Martin naming rights), so perhaps the whole racing Valkyrie operation will be covered by sponsor payments.
Any motor racing is expensive (club racing classic Mini Coooer S race engine £30,000, oh and you really ought to have a spare ready to use), but Le Mans level must cost a fortune, which AML do not have.
We know that AML have been sponsoring F1 since the Red Bull days, but road car sales, particularly Sports/GT have not increased during that period.
.............................................
I must not create a today spoiler so no figures, but quite often during this F1 season, a older Spanish gentleman has outclassed a young Canadian, both driving what we assume are identical cars. Mr. Stroll Snr needs to have a family chat at dinner tonight.
drac said:
I'm interesting in going back to Le Man to see this too. I've not been since '98 and Porsche's win with the GT1.
I'd love to see an era of road based hypercars slugging it out.
Insightful to see last years Ferrari covered no were near the distance of the previous 5 years of Toyota or the earlier 919s or Audis. Over 10% down, approx 4600km v 5200km, so quite a bit slower.
Still the greatest race.
Pretty wet early evening and quite a few safety car periods - one over an hour long near midnight didn’t help. Although it did allow Ferrari but ti worry about dry tyres quota.I'd love to see an era of road based hypercars slugging it out.
Insightful to see last years Ferrari covered no were near the distance of the previous 5 years of Toyota or the earlier 919s or Audis. Over 10% down, approx 4600km v 5200km, so quite a bit slower.
Still the greatest race.
Hypercars (really prototypes) are 10seconds or so slower than the LMP1s intentionally (by regs etc). Think original Valkyrie plan was for LMP1 pace.
2 wheel drive & no hybrid is a disadvantage for tyre wear but great to see a V12 there.
Lots ti do before testing starts Q2 2024 at the earliest.
Think money behind HoR is main reason it’s back on especially as IMSA program too
New GT3 Vantage - new light shape as road cars - quite drastic changes to venting behind front and rear wheels
https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/10/12/aston-ma...
https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/10/12/aston-ma...
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