When Aston Martin announced its intentions with the Valkyrie in 2016, the motoring world just about stopped in its tracks. We’ve seen game-changing hypercars before, but the Valkyrie appeared to be orders of magnitude more ambitious and more capable than anything that had gone before. Its Cosworth-derived 6.5-litre V12 pairs with a hybrid system to generate 1139bhp on its way to an 11,000rpm rev limit, with an initial projected weight figure of just over a ton. But these raw numbers are a very small part of the Valkyrie story.
Adrian Newey designed a skeletal, shrink-wrapped body around that V12 and a two-seat cockpit, which was said to produce an astonishing 1800kg of downforce for LMP1-like track performance. We’ve now driven the Valkyrie, and while its difficult birth has seen these claims substantially neutered (the production car is capped at 600kg of downforce), there is no road car like it.
‘At first everything feels like it’s happening too fast, but the trick is to look further and further ahead’, noted Dickie Meaden. ‘It feels unnatural, but it’s all part of the recalibration process. One that you gradually get on top of, but with less time to relax on the straights and so much compressed into each braking effort, the Valkyrie is a ruthless and relentless test of your focus and mental stamina.’
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