Aston Martin has announced its return to the top category of endurance racing with a variation of its Valkyrie model. The announcement came as the ACO, the rule-making body for the WEC and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirmed the full set of regulations for the 2020/21 season onwards.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie will compete as a full-season entry in the 2020/2021 FIA World Endurance Championship, including battling for overall honours at the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans. A minimum of two full-season cars have been confirmed. The car is being developed as a technical collaboration between Aston Martin, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and project partner AF Racing.
Aston Martin last competed in LMP1 in the 2011 season with the ill-fated AMR-One project. The British marque only has one overall win at the endurance classic to its name, coming back in 1959 with the Carroll Shelby and Roy Savaldori-driven, David Brown-entered Aston Martin DBR1.
Aston Martin Valkyrie
COMING TO @24hoursoflemans 2021#AstonMartin #Valkyrie pic.twitter.com/HBzFu0T8wf— Aston Martin (@astonmartin) 14 June 2019
“We have always said that we would one day bring Aston Martin back to Le Mans with the intention of going for the outright win when the time was right – now is that time,” Aston Martin Lagonda President and Group CEO, Andy Palmer said. “David Brown came here in 1959, with a car and a team of drivers capable of winning. We intend to do the same in 2021. The Aston Martin Valkyrie is primed for such a challenge and sits perfectly within the ACO’s new ‘hypercar’ rule framework.”
No further details of the programme have been released.
Image © Aston Martin