Three days after announcing the suspension of its Hypercar program for the WEC and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Aston Martin gave more details on the motivations that led to this decision.
Contrary to what the brand planned, it will not be on the grid in 2020-2021 and the development of a Valkyrie model for the competition has been put on hold. If the British manufacturer has decided to reassess his plans, he assures however that it has nothing to do with the major investment made by Lawrence Stroll a few weeks ago, and which will result in the official commitment of Aston Martin in Formula 1 via the Racing Point team from next year. "It's just a coincidence that the announcements took place at the same time, F1 has nothing to do with it," said David King, president of Aston Martin Racing. "It has nothing to do with the arrival of Lawrence Stroll, nothing to do with the fact that we had an economically more difficult year than expected."
No more buyers for the Valkyrie?
If Aston Martin made the decision to review its commitment in the Le Mans Hypercar category, it is indeed because of the announcement of convergence between the IMSA and the ACO, made in January. This will lead to the birth of the LMDh, which will find its place alongside the LMH and which was not included in the starting price when Aston implemented its project. This novelty, some of whose contours remain to be defined, has shaken the economic model that the brand had imagined for its involvement at the highest level of Endurance.
"One of the financial conditions surrounding the approval of our program assumed that we would recover part of the investment via the sale of racing Valkyrie to client teams, if not during the first year, at least during the second and the third, "says David King. "The intention to converge with IMSA through LMDh has changed things for us. We think that the market for customer competition is affected. The Valkyrie is an expensive racing car because it comes from a 2.5 million pound road car. Now, based on what we think other competitors will do, these private teams will be able to buy first-class, much cheaper LMDh cars. "
The regrets are important for Aston Martin given the efforts that had already been made to prepare the competition program in Le Mans Hypercar. The racing version of the Valkyrie was only two months away from its first laps. "We have been working hard since our announcement in June until we cut everything a few weeks ago," said David King. "We spent a lot of money and were well advanced in the car."
For the moment, Aston Martin insists that its program is suspended, and while its presence in GTE will not be called into question, the options to play the victory in Le Mans in the general classification remain under study but subject to regulatory details to be provided in the coming months.
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