Aston Martin Valkyrie returns to IMSA street race at Detroit Grand Prix
Aston Martin's Valkyrie hypercar will compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's final street race of the season on the Detroit Street Circuit this weekend.
1.7 miles
1,000 bhp
680 bhp
What Happened
The Aston Martin THOR Team will field the #23 Valkyrie driven by Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis in the 100-minute street race on the 1.7-mile Detroit Street Circuit. The nine-corner layout is tight and twisty, placing a premium on braking and traction.
The Valkyrie is the competition variant of Aston Martin's roadgoing hypercar, featuring a race-optimized carbon fiber chassis and a modified 6.5-liter V12 engine that revs to 11,000 rpm. It produces over 1,000 bhp in standard form but is restricted to 680 bhp (500 kW) per IMSA GTP regulations. It is the only V12-powered car and the only road-derived entry in the field.
“Bumpy street circuits don't play to the natural strengths of our car, but at Long Beach we were able to extract a lot of performance from Valkyrie. As always in IMSA, if you have a car that you can fight with, it's important to execute without error and be prepared to take advantage when opportunities arise.”
The team enters the weekend following Valkyrie's best WEC finish of fourth place at Spa-Francorchamps and a strong showing at Laguna Seca, where it finished just eight seconds behind the winner. At the previous street circuit in Long Beach, the car ran competitively in fourth before being struck by a rival. Drivers and team are confident of a strong result.
Why this matters
The Valkyrie is the only road-derived hypercar competing in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA, demonstrating the engineering link between road and track.
Terms in This Story
- IMSA
- International Motor Sports Association, sanctioning body for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
- GTP
- Grand Touring Prototype, the top class in IMSA.
- WEC
- FIA World Endurance Championship, a global endurance racing series.
- Hypercar
- A class of high-performance race cars derived from road-going hypercars in WEC and IMSA.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.