The Heart of Racing team has announced that Aston Martin will enter a Le Mans Hypercar into the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans via the Aston Martin Valkyrie Program. Additionally, Aston martin will also participate in select endurance races in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship GTP class. The prototype Valkyrie will participate in three of the most prestigious events; Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Lawrence Stroll, Executive Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda stated “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 endeavors 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.
Aston Martin Builds off of its F1 Legacy
Stroll continued his thoughts on expansion beyond Formula 1. “In addition to our presence in the FIA Formula 1® World Championship, Aston Martin’s return to the pinnacle of endurance racing will allow us to build a deeper connection with our customers and community, many of whom found their passion for the brand through our past success at Le Mans. And of course, the complex knowledge-base we are building through our F1® team is data that Aston Martin Performance Technologies can harness to further enhance the capabilities of the Valkyrie racecar at Le Mans, in WEC and IMSA.
Just as the learnings we gain through endurance competition will feed directly into our road car programs, further improving the ultimate performance of our products. I would like to thank Gabe Newell and Heart of Racing for partnering with Aston Martin on this program, and I look forward to working with him and the team as we aim for success in the greatest endurance race of them all.”
Ian James, Team Principal of Heart of Racing, 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 programs for two years now.”