Aston Martin Valkyrie to make IMSA debut at Sebring

Aston Martin Racing has set March’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as the site where its new Valkyrie GTP model will make its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut.

Although it was hoped the V12-powered prototype would take part in IMSA’s season-opener during January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona, the call has been made to skip the arduous 24-hour race as the Valkyrie’s first competitive outing in favor of the shorter but more punishing event at Sebring. The Valkyrie’s global racing launch will take place late in February at the FIA World Endurance Championship’s curtain-raiser in Qatar.

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Run in partnership with The Heart of Racing, the Valkyrie turned its first laps in an IMSA-sanctioned test last week at Daytona as the series’ technical team benchmarked cars from all four WeatherTech Championship classes ahead of the upcoming season.

Drivers Roman de Angelis, Ross Gunn, and Alex Riberas took turns behind the wheel of the car at Daytona where the Valkyrie, which conforms to LMH regulations, shared the track with cars built to LMDh rules from Acura, BMW, Lamborghini, and Porsche.

Across two days of running, the Valkyrie produced a best lap of 1m37.169s, which was 1.461s shy of the leading Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06’s 1m35.708s tour of the 3.5-mile infield road course.