Aston Martin Valkyrie
Aston Martin
Fresh from its first top-10 finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Aston Martin Valkyrie returns to action this weekend as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship resumes at Watkins Glen International for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
The six-hour endurance race marks another important step in Aston Martin’s growing GTP program. It also serves as the third round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, the championship-within-a-championship that includes IMSA’s longest races. So far this season, Valkyrie has finished inside the top 10 at both the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Twelve Hours of Sebring.
While 2025 marked the hypercar’s debut season, Aston Martin’s factory THOR team has made steady progress throughout 2026. The Valkyrie has recorded five consecutive top-10 finishes in IMSA competition, highlighted by an eighth-place result at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and its strongest qualifying performance to date, starting sixth on the grid.
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Aston Martin
Watkins Glen has also been a productive venue for the team’s driver lineup.
Ross Gunn arrives with an impressive record at the upstate New York circuit, having claimed two GTD Pro victories along with two additional podium finishes in six appearances. Teammate Roman De Angelis also knows what it takes to win at Watkins Glen, taking victory there during his 2022 GTD championship campaign before adding two more podium finishes in subsequent starts.
The Valkyrie continues to stand apart in the GTP field. It remains the only car in IMSA’s top category derived from a road-legal hypercar and is also the first Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) built by Aston Martin. It’s currently the only LMH competing full-time in both the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Developed jointly by Aston Martin and THOR from the road-going Valkyrie, the race car retains the model’s naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine, which revs to 11,000 rpm. Although the production version produces more than 1,000 horsepower, IMSA and WEC Hypercar regulations cap output at 500 kW (680 hp). Combined with a purpose-built carbon-fiber chassis optimized for endurance racing, the Valkyrie has steadily become a more competitive contender as the season has progressed.
After demonstrating its potential on the world’s biggest endurance racing stage at Le Mans, Aston Martin now turns its attention to Watkins Glen, where another strong result would further underline the progress made by the Valkyrie program during its second season of top-level prototype competition.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
