- Aston Martin THOR Team and Valkyrie take positives learned from Long Beach best result as it returns to the city streets for Detroit downtown race
- Aston Martin THOR Team drivers Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn tackle US street race with British hypercar
- Valkyrie is the only hypercar to contest the world’s two premier sportscar series, IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship, in 2025
- The Aston Martin THOR Team target fourth consecutive points finish before attention turns to Valkyrie’s Le Mans debut in June
28 May, 2025, Detroit, USA: The spectacular new Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar is set to return to street-fighting mode for the second and final time this season, on the tight 1.7-mile downtown city roads of Detroit, as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IMSA) moves on to Round 5 of North America’s premier endurance series.
The first ‘Le Mans Hypercar’ (LMH) to be produced by Aston Martin, Valkyrie is the only car in IMSA’s premier GTP category derived from a road-legal hypercar. The British contender is also the first LMH car of any kind to compete in IMSA, and the only one contesting both IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) simultaneously, having made its debut in February’s Qatar 1812km.
An encouraging start to its IMSA career has already included three points finishes and two top-10 results from three races for the Aston Martin THOR Team, including an eighth-place finish at Long Beach in April (the other 100-minute street race on the IMSA calendar) for drivers Roman De Angelis (CDN) and Ross Gunn (GBR).
Both drivers will take confidence from Valkyrie’s street race debut in Long Beach, where despite being right at the beginning of its IMSA career it was able to hold its own running in the GTP class pack for much of the event. Gunn and De Angelis have also been victorious in Detroit with Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing Team in the GTD category, though that 2021 win – their first together in IMSA – came on the Belle Isle track, some 2.5km down the Detroit River from the current venue.
“There is still so much to learn for the programme, but we are taking giant steps forward internally with every race in terms of data, systems and procedures,” said Aston Martin THOR team principal Ian James. “To have three points finishes in succession with a brand-new and unique car is an exceptional start to the season for us and we hope to be able to continue this trend. With every race the car does, both in WEC and IMSA, we edge a little closer to the ultimate pace and it feels like only a matter of time now before we go home from a race weekend having bagged a big chunk of points and a strong finish!”
The Valkyrie hypercar is developed from the production car by Aston Martin and THOR. The competition version blends a race-optimised carbon fibre chassis with a modified 6.5-litre V12 powerplant that revs to 11,000rpm and produces over 1000bhp in standard form, but adheres to a strict 500kw (680bhp) power limit as per hypercar regulations.
Valkyrie positions Aston Martin in the top division of US sportscar racing for the first time since 2011; a season in which five outright victories and seven podiums were achieved in the American Le Mans Series.
Ross Gunn, driver #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie: “Detroit is always a special place to visit and moving into the city centre definitely changes the vibe of the event and makes it feel like more of a street race. Having already done Long Beach we learnt some valuable lessons about how the car behaves on a street circuit and we’ll use all that information this weekend. Aston Martin THOR Team have worked hard to give us a faster and more driveable Valkyrie and it’s been encouraging to see the progress over the past three months. Laguna Seca was a step in the right direction and I’m confident we can make another here.
Roman De Angelis, driver #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie: “Detroit is always an event I’ve looked forward to in the past, though I haven’t raced there for a couple of years due to the IMSA schedule. It’s good to come back and I’ve had some pretty good results there with Ross in the past including getting our first IMSA victory together and finishing second the year after. I feel like we’ve been improving well over the past few IMSA races and the Valkyrie hypercar seems to get faster and faster. I’m looking forward to building on the past few events and taking what we’ve learned since Laguna Seca to push ourselves on.”
Adam Carter, Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport: “Valkyrie and the Aston Martin THOR Team have made constant improvements at every event since the car’s top-10 finish on its debut at Sebring in March and we’re now onto its fourth race in IMSA. Temporary street circuits, of which this is the second and last race on one this season, offer unique challenges for the hypercar class, and therefore also deliver us a wider range of data to work with as we continue to understand the car’s potential in all competitive environments.
Valkyrie’s best result in any competition so far came on the streets at Long Beach, and that bodes well for us to push hard as always for an even better result this weekend.”
How to watch
The Detroit Sports Car Classic will begin at 1540 local time (+4 Hours GMT) on Saturday, 31 May, 2025. It will be broadcast live globally on IMSA TV and on the IMSA YouTube channel and and via selected broadcasters at a national level.