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

Whenever I’m at a race for Autosport, the World Endurance Championship or whatever, I like to venture out on track to get a feel of what the cars are doing.

A bit of elevation is always good to enhance my view as well as the spectacle. Not much chance of that in Qatar last week, of course: tracks don’t come much flatter or featureless. But I didn’t really mind. This time I wasn’t out there to watch, I was there to listen. 

It wasn’t my nose I needed to be pressing against the fence, but an ear. A new machine arrived in the WEC’s Hypercar class at the 2025 season-opener, and I had to hear the thing in anger and up as close as possible.

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

The drivers have been talking about its sound for a while now. Harry Tincknell, the first to test the Valkyrie in completed form, has been bigging it up to me. He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s gone out on track when one of his team-mates at The Heart of Racing team was behind the wheel just to listen. And to smile, no doubt. 

I wasn’t disappointed when I took up various vantage – or rather listening – points around the track in Qatar during practice. The Valkyrie sounds the business and is a perfect antidote to the farty turbos that numerically dominate the Hypercar grid. Up to now we’ve had to make do with Cadillac’s 5.5-litre V8 as the only non-turbo in the pack. 

Noise is an important element of the appeal of motor racing, at least it always has been for me. My first time at the British Grand Prix came at Brands Hatch in 1978. Sure the bark of the Cosworth DFV dominated, but I got to hear the Ferrari and Alfa Romeo flat-12s that blocked out the podium that day and Matra’s sonorous V12 in the back of the Ligier, not forgetting one of those new-fangled turbos from Renault.

They’ll never catch on, thought my 11-year-old self!

When I was sitting down at the bottom of Paddock Hill Bend, I could tell what was coming before it appeared in view. That’s the way it should be to my mind, and has been through much of my 30-plus years of reporting on long-distance racing. When I pitched up in the paddock for the first time in 1990, we had Jaguar’s big-capacity V12, an array of turbos, including Mercedes’s earth-moving V8 and Porsche’s flat-six, and the four-rotor Mazda engine. 

Think of all the great sportscar powerplants I’ve had the good fortune to hear at full revs down the Mulsanne Straight over the years: the four-litre V12 in the Ferrari 333SP, the Judd V10 of various capacities, Mazda’s rotaries and any number of V8s and V6s. 

There’s a genuine excitement around the car, and that can only help draw fans to the track, as well as eyes and ears around the world to televisions, computers and phones

There has been the odd four-pot turbo, too. And I can say I even caught a snatch of the engine note of a W12, the MGN unit in the back of a Norma Group C car that never made it out of the paddock in 1990: I heard it fire up under its awning and promptly go bang!

Variety has always been one of the calling cards of the discipline to which I have devoted my working life. In our golden age of sportscar racing we have a grid of cars that all look different, and delightfully so, but until now the shame has been that they all pretty much sounded the same except for the Caddy.

Of the V8 turbos, the BMW is the best to my ears, and I’d pick the Toyota as my favourite of the V6s. But I didn’t get excited about coming to those conclusions. 

I did when the Valkyrie went straight to the top of the charts — sorry Cadillac! — in Qatar. But I’m not done with my trackside trips to marvel at the Valkyrie’s engine note. 

Neither Valkyrie scored a point in Qatar but that has not dwindled the excitement

Photo by: FIAWEC – DPPI

The wide-open expanses of the Losail International Circuit probably weren’t the best place to get a fill of the noise of that V12, especially when the wind was blowing a gale. Somewhere a bit more enclosed, I reckon, would be better. 

That’s why I can’t wait for the WEC to arrive at Imola in April and then Spa in May. I’m thinking it’s got to be Acque Minerali and then Rivazza in Italy and probably Eau Rouge followed by Pouhon when I get to Belgium.  

At the double downhill left at Spa, I have a favourite rock on which to sit when I make it out of the paddock as much to indulge my passion as to try to learn something. But I’m thinking this time, I might need to get there early ahead of whatever session I chose for what is going to be an aural pilgrimage. 

The arrival of the Valkyrie in the WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship, in which it will start racing at this month’s Sebring 12 Hours, is a major fillip for top-flight sportscar racing.

There’s a genuine excitement around the car, and that can only help draw fans to the track, as well as eyes and ears around the world to televisions, computers and phones.

There are going to be endurance aficionados out there with the same idea as me come Spa. I’m a bit worried someone might beat me to my rock. But then would it really matter if I’ve got my back to the track?

Gary is looking forward to watching the Valkyrie tackle the forthcoming WEC rounds

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images