Aston Martin is the first driver for the Valkyrie LMH race car

Aston Martin on Thursday offered a program update to get into a Valkyrie hypercar-based race car in the top-level endurance race starting in 2025, including naming the first 2 drivers.

Aston Martin will exhibit 2 examples of race cars known as Valkyrie AMR-LMH at both the Imsa Sports Car Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship. The latter boasts 24 hours of Le Mans on the calendar, and Aston Martin is set to chase the full victory in the French Classic that Roy Salvadori and Carol Shelby achieved in 1959 with the Aston Martin DBR1.

Valkyrie AMR-LMH race Car is already competing at GT3 level with Aston Martin and Aston Martin Vantage Race Car U.S.-based team The first confirmed drivers for the new team are Alex Riberas and Harry Tincknell. Additional drivers will be named later.

Riveras has already raced for Heart of Racing at GT3 level in both the Sports Car Championship (GTD Pro) and the World Endurance Championship (LMGT3) and has recorded several victories. Tinknell has also competed in the World Endurance Championship with several victories under his belt, including spending time behind the wheel of a Ford GT race car or Nissan's failed GT-R LM Nismo LMP1.

The Valkyrie AMR-LMH they pilot has been developed to meet Lmh rules and can qualify for the Premier GTP class of the Sports Car Championship and the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship. The Aston Martin Performance Technologies Consulting division of the Aston Martin Formula 1 team has partnered with Heart of Racing to develop the car.

Aston Martin has already completed much of its development since the Valkyrie AMR Pro track car launched in 2021 was originally intended to be an LMH race car ready to compete at Le Mans in 2021, but plans scuttled in 2020 after the onset of the pandemic. It was a great experience.

Valkyrie AMR-LMH will be a very different beast from the road car whose name is shared. It features a unique chassis that is longer and wider than the chassis of the road vehicle. The road car's mild hybrid system will also be removed for the race car to meet the durability to retain the 6.5-liter V-12 of the road car, but balance the performance rules as well as to last the length of the 24-hour race.

The first race of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH will be in Qatar 2km in the next 1812 months and Sebring 3 hours in the next 12 months. The race is the opening round of each of the World Endurance Championship and Sports Car Championship.