Aston Martin publicly committed to the Le Mans Hypercar class in 2019 with a plan to start competition at the 2021 FIA WEC season opener with at least two factory cars. The original programme did not include a hybrid system despite the Valkyrie road car having one, and was to be run by Multimatic Motorsports with additional customer cars fielded by R-Motorsport.
In February 2020, Aston Martin cancelled the project. The stated reason was the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's decision to allow LMDh cars — a more cost-effective prototype solution using shared chassis — to participate in the Hypercar class. Aston Martin's financial model had depended substantially on selling customer entries in a field where only purpose-built LMH cars would compete; the convergence of the two rulesets removed that commercial foundation. David King, an Aston Martin executive, confirmed the development had nearly reached the stage of a fully operational car at the time of cancellation.
The programme was revived in October 2023. The plan to race without a hybrid system was retained. Power comes from the Cosworth RA — a 6,499 cc (6.5-litre), 65-degree V12 naturally aspirated engine shared with all versions of the Valkyrie road car but extensively modified to achieve reliable performance within the Le Mans Hypercar power window. Rated output is 500 kW (671 bhp). The gearbox is a 7-speed sequential manual unit by Xtrac.
The absence of a hybrid system — used by most rival LMH and LMDh cars for electrical launch assistance — is addressed by a "starternator": a combined starter motor and alternator that allows the car to launch from standstill without the combustion engine running, meeting the Hypercar class's launch-from-rest requirements without conventional hybrid architecture.
The programme is run by The Heart of Racing (THOR), the factory-backed team. Car numbers #007 and #009 were chosen to honour the Aston Martin DBR9 that carried those numbers in its Le Mans-winning campaigns. The car was rolled out in summer 2024 and underwent an extensive test programme at Silverstone and Donington Park with drivers Darren Turner, Harry Tincknell, and Mario Farnbacher, followed by sanctioned tests at Bahrain and Daytona. In November 2024 Aston Martin announced the car would skip the 2025 24 Hours of Daytona to allow further testing, making the 2025 Qatar 1812 km the race debut.
The Valkyrie AMR-LMH made its racing debut at the 2025 Qatar 1812 km, the opening round of the 2025 FIA WEC season. The #007 (Harry Tincknell / Tom Gamble) retired with a transmission failure; the #009 (Alex Riberas / Marco Sørensen) completed the race 23 laps down. Progress through the 2025 season was steady: the #23 IMSA entry (Ross Gunn / Roman De Angelis) recorded top-ten finishes in every round of the first half of the North American season. In WEC, the cars ran in points-scoring positions at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and completed the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans without mechanical issues. At the 2025 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, the Valkyrie AMR-LMH scored its first podium in either championship, finishing second overall just five seconds behind the race-winning Cadillac.
The 2025 WEC season closed with 24 points and an 8th-place championship result. The 2026 WEC season opened more competitively: through the first two rounds (6 Hours of Imola, 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps) the team held 4th in the championship with 14 points. In 2025 IMSA the team finished 11th with 2,049 points.
In June 2025, to mark the return to top-class Le Mans competition, Aston Martin introduced the Valkyrie LM — an unrestricted track-only version of the AMR-LMH from which mandatory competition electronics, ballast, and homologation equipment have been removed. The Cosworth V12 powertrain is retained, reconfigured to run on standard rather than race-specification fuels. Production is limited to ten examples. Owners participate in Aston Martin's "Unleashed" programme, providing on-circuit support at racing facilities worldwide.
The Valkyrie AMR-LMH holds two distinctions unique within the current Hypercar field: it is the only production-derived car in the class, and the only one powered by a naturally aspirated V12. Both trace directly to the Valkyrie road car programme and to Aston Martin's decision to build the race car from its production hypercar rather than purpose-built prototype architecture.
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