The Aston Martin Valkyrie’s world racing debut in Qatar two weeks ago was really just the beginning of a journey that’s been over five years in the making: From its conception, to its death, to its rebirth… and now, what comes next.
Immediately, what’s next is the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring next Saturday. It’s the first time that Ross Gunn and the rest of The Heart of Racing team will race the Valkyrie in America — and in front of a passionate crowd of thousands of fans who’ve only ever seen and heard the car running from video and broadcast footage and yearn to feel it in person.
Make no mistake, Aston Martin and THOR never made any grand proclamations of what to expect at the FIA World Endurance Championship opener in Qatar. And it was a tough 10 hours for the two Valkyries — one had its door blow off, the other suffered a broken gearbox and retired several hours short of the goal, and neither had the qualifying or sustained race pace to challenge for points regardless.
“To be part of the first race last week in Qatar was a huge privilege,” Gunn said. “We’re under no illusions how difficult the task is ahead of us. We’re kind of in the deep end, as it were, being two years behind everybody else. But we like challenges.”
The trial by fire for Gunn, Aston Martin and THOR in Qatar was just another step in the program’s long convoluted development. Jacob Ebrey/Getty Images
Gunn is coming off an outstanding season in the GTD PRO class, where he and Heart of Racing came tantalizingly close to a championship last season — ultimately coming up just a handful of points short after a brilliant battle with Laurin Heinrich and AO Racing. His selection as one of the six original drivers of the road-born Valkyrie AMR-LMH is the culmination of a decade spent as part of the fabric of Aston Martin Racing, from Evolution Academy prospect and British GT champion to a proven winner in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT3 categories.
“Our aim is to try and bring the noise to Sebring, try and gain as much mileage as we can,” Gunn said, “because that is really essential to the program at the moment — trying to get as much information about the car.
“There’s things that we’re learning every time we turn a wheel. Sebring is a very tough track, not only on the cars but the drivers. We’ve been preparing hard and to get some mileage under our belt last week in Qatar is definitely pivotal to helping our performance and preparation ahead of next weekend.”
The bad news is that if Qatar was a punishing trial for Aston Martin just for one of its cars to see the checkered flag, Sebring should be worse. The combination of the jagged pavement, the rising heat of Florida in the springtime and the lack of runoff is well-established among sports car racing fans. It’s half the distance of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, yet arguably twice as hard to finish — and that’s before throwing the interactions of three different types of vehicles into the equation.
Sebring provides the ultimate endurance test. Jake Galstad/Lumen
The good news is that last year, another manufacturer showed up to Sebring after skipping Daytona and struggling through Qatar, and did much better than expected. Sure, things have looked a bit bleak for Lamborghini and the SC63 since it finished sixth in last year’s IMSA debut. But it is a result that Aston Martin can aspire to match against a smaller GTP grid than the one in Qatar.
“Never say never,” Gunn said. “I think the beauty of endurance racing is there’s so many variables. So many things can happen. We’re very early in our development phase and again, Sebring is such a difficult circuit on the cars, and on the drivers. I think for us, the key is to just remain realistic.”
Aston Martin has some gap to try and close down to the established IMSA GTP “big four” of Porsche, Cadillac, Acura and BMW but at least in the contest for “best sounding prototype,” the naturally aspirated, V12-powered Valkyrie seems to be only rivaled by the Cadillac V-Series.R and its V8. And aesthetically, the shape of the Valkyrie is high up most fans’ leaderboards too.
“We have a new fan favorite car,” Gunn says of his machine. “The V12 engine sounds incredible and everybody’s going to love it.
“But we have to be realistic in the sense that we are, step by step, trying to get close to the competition. I think setting our expectations low to start with is definitely the smartest thing, and we’ll keep progressing from there.”
Whatever its pace is like, the Valkyrie is set to make a big impression with its noise. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images
Every bit of track time matters for Gunn and everyone involved in the Valkyrie program — who will be staying around in Sebring for further tests after the 12 Hours is finished. That’ll at least help Gunn make up for not driving at February’s series-sanctioned test at Sebring due to a minor injury, though he did observe from the pit wall.
“It’s not like we can test every week. So we need to be really efficient with the way that we test, and make sure that every time we put the car on the track, it’s worthwhile,” he notes. “The team is experienced, we have great support from Aston Martin and Multimatic, and I’m sure that every time we get on the track, we’re going to be making steps forward.”
Co-drivers Roman de Angelis and Endurance Cup specialist Alex Riberas took similar pathways from within Aston Martin and Heart of Racing’s GT programs into the Valkyrie project, and like Gunn, they’ll be approaching Sebring much differently in their new surroundings.
“It is an incredibly different track to driving the GT3 (Vantage),” says Gunn. “I think your perspective is just completely different. You feel certain bumps that you never knew existed, having driven hundreds of laps in the GT3 car.
“The temperature will be very different as well. That’s a key thing. So there isn’t that much of a crossover in terms of actual car setup . But there are lots of things on the electronic side — also on the driving side, how we prepare the car lap to lap.
“You know, we’re all still very inexperienced with this class. But every time we get in the car is essential for us, because we’re getting more and more confident, more and more comfortable. It’s not just a case of getting the car quicker, it’s also about getting us quicker. I think there’s still a lot more potential in the drivers to come, the more laps that we pick up.”
Gunn didn’t finish the race in Qatar, but he feels if the new Valkyrie can make it all 12 hours at Sebring, the rest of THOR’s first GTP campaign will be a breeze by comparison.
“A successful season for us would be, by the end of the year, challenging the establishment,” he says. “But as I keep alluding to, there’s so much work ahead of us to get to that level.
“If you can get through Sebring, you can almost get through any race. So having this challenge quite early on in our program is, I think, really important. We’re really working hard to make sure that by the end of Saturday night we’ll at least have a finish. Hopefully, we’ll have some sort of pace during the race that is contending with the people that have been doing it for years.”
