Aston Martin has confirmed that Heart of Racing will operate a pair of Valkyrie AMR-LMH prototypes next season in the FIA WEC (subject to its entries being accepted), following the confirmation today at the ACO’s annual Le Mans press conference that each Hypercar manufacturer will be required to enter at least two cars from 2025 onwards.
In response to this change in the regulations, Aston Martin says that both it and Heart of Racing, its works partner, “are delighted to support this change in the regulations, in the interests of working together to improve the sporting environment for the benefit of all.”
Crucially, this new rule will not affect Heart of Racing and Aston Martin’s plans to compete with the Valkyrie in IMSA GTP. Instead, the second Valkyrie for WEC will be Heart of Racing’s third for the 2025 racing season.
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Alongside its pair now set to take on a full FIA WEC campaign, a third AMR-LMH will compete Stateside in IMSA, as originally planned.
This news comes at a time when development work on the Valkyrie AMR-LMH is progressing apace.
“The Valkyrie AMR-LMH program is on schedule with a significant amount of development taking place behind the scenes and ahead of the car’s track debut later this summer,” said Adam Carter, Aston Martin’s head of endurance motorsport.
“We then anticipate an intensive period of testing to put miles on the car and learn all we can ahead of its planned homologation in the autumn.”
Heart of Racing has also recently established a new base for the WEC program in the UK, close to where the racing cars are being constructed in co-operation with Aston Martin Performance Technologies, based at Silverstone.
For its IMSA effort, the GTP-bound Valkyrie will be prepped and run out of Heart of Racing’s Phoenix HQ in North America.
“With this new direction of the WEC ruleset we have had to bring forward our plans to run multiple cars in the WEC Hypercar class. This has obviously condensed our build-up process, but we are very excited about the prospect of having two cars in the field.
“We will be proud to be a part of this class, which has seen a meteoric rise in the past couple of years, and offers amazing racing and fan interaction. The challenge ahead is immense, and we are looking forward to the journey.” said Heart of Racing Team Principal Ian James.