Aston Martin evaluating first major upgrade for Valkyrie hypercar

Aston Martin could introduce the first major upgrade to the Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar in 2027, according to The Heart of Racing team principal Ian James.

The British manufacturer is evaluating the use of the so-called evo jokers to address some of the underlying weaknesses of the V12-powered prototype for what would be its third season in the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

While the Valkyrie has proved extremely reliable so far in both series, results have proven hard to come by, with a second-place finish in last year’s IMSA finale at Petit Le Mans marking the car’s only podium so far.

THOR chief James said that discussions to upgrade the Valkyrie are ongoing, driven by both a desire to improve the car and stay level with the competition.

“We have ideas that will help us where we see the weakness of the car,” James explained. “With the way the class has evolved, it just shows that maybe it is not as the concept was originally [intended], that you can keep the same car and it will get capped in the performance window. Recently, you saw the announcement that Ferrari is bringing a raft of changes.

“I think we are going to have to do something. Exactly what we are going to do right now is not defined, but we are going to see what weaknesses we can address.”

Aston Martin carried over last year’s Valkyrie LMH into 2026, insisting that it wanted to maximise the performance from its existing package before considering making bigger changes.

Apart from newcomer Genesis, it remains the only GTP/Hypercar manufacturer yet to deploy any evo jokers for the development of its prototype.

Factory driver Ross Gunn said the entire team is “working hard” on identifying and bringing key fixes to improve the Valkyrie for the 2027 season.

“Everything is in the works. There are things we are looking at to work on,” Gunn told Motorsport.com. “As drivers, we just try to give feedback on the areas in the car we can improve. In IMSA, we struggle a little bit more on street tracks and on bumpy tracks, so maybe that is an area we are really looking at.

“A lot of the development is controlled by Multimatic, Ian [James] and Aston Martin. They are working hard on bringing hard on brining something hopefully for the future.”

At last weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours, the best of the two non-hybrid Valkyries finished in eighth place, several minutes down on the race-winning Toyota, after struggling with excessive aero drag.

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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