Why the V12 of the Aston Martin Valkyrie leaves fans striving for more

Each time I’m at a race for Autosport, the World Endurance Championship or no matter, I prefer to enterprise out on observe to get a really feel of what the vehicles are doing.

A little bit of elevation is all the time good to boost my view in addition to the spectacle. Not a lot likelihood of that in Qatar final week, in fact: tracks don’t come a lot flatter or featureless. However I didn’t actually thoughts. This time I wasn’t on the market to look at, I used to be there to hear. 

It wasn’t my nostril I wanted to be urgent in opposition to the fence, however an ear. A brand new machine arrived within the WEC’s Hypercar class on the 2025 season-opener, and I needed to hear the factor in anger and up as shut as attainable.

I’m speaking about Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar, or particularly its 6.5-litre normally-aspirated V12 engine developed for the automotive by Cosworth. 

The drivers have been speaking about its sound for some time now. Harry Tincknell, the primary to check the Valkyrie in accomplished type, has been bigging it as much as me. He’s not ashamed to confess that he’s gone out on observe when one in all his team-mates at The Heart of Racing team was behind the wheel simply to hear. And to smile, little doubt. 

I wasn’t disenchanted after I took up varied vantage – or slightly listening – factors across the observe in Qatar throughout observe. The Valkyrie sounds the enterprise and is an ideal antidote to the farty turbos that numerically dominate the Hypercar grid. Thus far we’ve needed to make do with Cadillac’s 5.5-litre V8 as the one non-turbo within the pack. 

Noise is a crucial aspect of the attraction of motor racing, at the least it all the time has been for me. My first time on the British Grand Prix got here at Manufacturers Hatch in 1978. Certain the bark of the Cosworth DFV dominated, however I acquired to listen to the Ferrari and Alfa Romeo flat-12s that blocked out the rostrum that day and Matra’s sonorous V12 behind the Ligier, not forgetting a type of new-fangled turbos from Renault.

They’ll by no means catch on, thought my 11-year-old self!

After I was sitting down on the backside of Paddock Hill Bend, I might inform what was coming earlier than it appeared in view. That’s the best way it ought to be to my thoughts, and has been by way of a lot of my 30-plus years of reporting on long-distance racing. After I pitched up within the paddock for the primary time in 1990, we had Jaguar’s big-capacity V12, an array of turbos, together with Mercedes’s earth-moving V8 and Porsche’s flat-six, and the four-rotor Mazda engine. 

Consider all the good sportscar powerplants I’ve had the nice fortune to listen to at full revs down the Mulsanne Straight over time: the four-litre V12 within the Ferrari 333SP, the Judd V10 of assorted capacities, Mazda’s rotaries and any variety of V8s and V6s. 

There’s a real pleasure across the automotive, and that may solely assist draw followers to the observe, in addition to eyes and ears all over the world to televisions, computer systems and telephones

There was the odd four-pot turbo, too. And I can say I even caught a snatch of the engine notice of a W12, the MGN unit behind a Norma Group C automotive that by no means made it out of the paddock in 1990: I heard it hearth up underneath its awning and promptly go bang!

Selection has all the time been one of many calling playing cards of the self-discipline to which I’ve devoted my working life. In our golden age of sportscar racing we’ve got a grid of vehicles that every one look completely different, and delightfully so, however till now the disgrace has been that all of them just about sounded the identical apart from the Caddy.

Of the V8 turbos, the BMW is the perfect to my ears, and I’d choose the Toyota as my favorite of the V6s. However I didn’t get enthusiastic about coming to these conclusions. 

I did when the Valkyrie went straight to the highest of the charts — sorry Cadillac! — in Qatar. However I’m not performed with my trackside journeys to marvel on the Valkyrie’s engine notice. 

Neither Valkyrie scored some extent in Qatar however that has not dwindled the joy

Picture by: FIAWEC – DPPI

The wide-open expanses of the Losail Worldwide Circuit in all probability weren’t the perfect place to get a fill of the noise of that V12, particularly when the wind was blowing a gale. Someplace a bit extra enclosed, I reckon, can be higher. 

That’s why I can’t anticipate the WEC to reach at Imola in April after which Spa in Might. I’m considering it’s acquired to be Acque Minerali after which Rivazza in Italy and possibly Eau Rouge adopted by Pouhon after I get to Belgium.  

On the double downhill left at Spa, I’ve a favorite rock on which to take a seat after I make it out of the paddock as a lot to indulge my ardour as to attempt to study one thing. However I’m considering this time, I would have to get there early forward of no matter session I selected for what’s going to be an aural pilgrimage. 

The arrival of the Valkyrie within the WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship, wherein it would begin racing at this month’s Sebring 12 Hours, is a significant fillip for top-flight sportscar racing.

There’s a real pleasure across the automotive, and that may solely assist draw followers to the observe, in addition to eyes and ears all over the world to televisions, computer systems and telephones.

There are going to be endurance aficionados on the market with the identical thought as me come Spa. I’m a bit nervous somebody may beat me to my rock. However then would it not actually matter if I’ve acquired my again to the observe?

Gary is wanting ahead to watching the Valkyrie sort out the forthcoming WEC rounds

Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs