SEBRING, Fla. – One of the distinguishing features of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the variety of machinery spread among the four classes of competition.
That variety brings with it race cars of various shapes and sizes, creating visual – and audible – differences for race fans to appreciate and root for. Whether it’s AO Racing’s “Rexy” the Porsche 911 GT3 “Rawr” in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) or “Spike” the LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype 2) “Dragon” – which resonate especially with the youngest IMSA fans – Pfaff Motorsports’ various plaid machinery over the years, or the throaty rumble of Cadillacs, Corvettes and Ford Mustangs, many cars have endeared themselves to IMSA fans.
Come the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, there’s a good chance the new Aston Martin Valkyrie and its screaming V12 engine will become another fan favorite. The No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Valkyrie was impossible to miss in Wednesday’s test sessions at Sebring International Raceway with an easy-to-distinguish sound that could be picked up long before the car came into view on the racetrack.
“We made a bit of adjustment to the silencing on the car, and everyone keeps coming up and congratulating me so I think we’ve moved in the right direction,” said Aston Martin THOR Team Principal Ian James. “It sounds glorious out there! You don’t need the tracker to find where it is on track. GT guys are like, ‘We love it when this car overtakes us.’”
For driver Roman De Angelis, who is sharing the No. 23 Valkyrie for the remainder of the WeatherTech Championship season with Ross Gunn – and with Alex Riberas for the remaining IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup rounds – the sound of the Valkyrie takes him back to his days as a race fan watching his father, Max, race in Prototype Challenge.
“I’m going to go back and say when I was younger, I looked forward to seeing my dad racing in IMSA,” De Angelis recalled. “I remember Aston has built an LMP1 car, which Muscle Milk was running in IMSA, and that was a V12… I’d go to the side of the track, at (age) 10 and 11, just to see that car, because it was the best sounding car, and I think that kind of sparked a love and a passion for IMSA and that style of racing.
“My goal was always sports car racing, endurance racing. I think it’s memories like that that sparked my interest. Kind of taking a step back, for me it was only 10-12 years ago, but I hope there’s people in that position that see it and hear it and it’s a pretty cool story. Obviously, it’s a beautiful car and it’s done well in the sport as well… Hopefully there’s some people – and I was in their shoes 10 or 12 years ago – and it kind of sparks a passion for sports car racing for them and maybe they’ll be in that position.”
To be fair, there’s still work to be done for the car’s pace and on-track performance to match the sound – it was some two-and-a-half seconds off the quickest time in GTP on Wednesday – but the team is making strides.
“We started with one GT3 car in 2020,” James said. “Our goal was to maybe we get one top five, one podium, and we’d be happy. A win we’d be ecstatic. Now we’re a regular contender for wins in GT classes and we’re respected for that.
“It’s the same kind of journey (with the Valkyrie). A podium before the end of the year would be awesome. We don’t have any set goals in terms of what we have to achieve. Incremental improvements would be the goal.”