Aston Martin's Worst Prototype Only Raced Twice, And Never Finished Once

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It's been a slow, albeit gorgeous-sounding, return to prototype racing for Aston Martin. The Valkyrie's long-awaited 2025 debut successful nan World Endurance Championship (WEC) & IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns nan British marque to nan apical level of endurance racing for nan first clip successful a decade, bringing a tremendous V12 soundtrack pinch it. While the Valkyrie had to skip nan 24 Hours of Daytona to find much speed, things started to travel to life during nan tail extremity of nan twelvemonth arsenic nan Heart of Racing team drove nan hypercar to a apical 5 decorativeness astatine nan 6 Hours of Fuji and a podium astatine Petit Le Mans.

However, those heavy successful sports car racing lore already cognize nan Valkyrie has seen acold much occurrence than Aston's astir anterior effort astatine prototype racing. Back successful 2010, Aston saw awesome occurrence successful endurance racing. Their DBR9 was winning, earning people wins astatine Le Mans and taking championships successful GT1, while their Lola B08/60 prototype was starting to situation nan diesel-powered dynamos of Audi and Peugeot. With an LMP1 regularisation alteration successful 2011, Aston Martin could support moving their Lola chassis, but saw nan opportunity to commencement from scratch and build their ain Le Mans challenger from nan crushed up. 

However, nan determination came from Aston's executives astatine nan buzzer. Where different teams were preparing for years to make their caller LMP1 entries, Aston Martin only had a matter of months. The consequence would beryllium 1 of nan astir humiliating programs successful modern motorsports history — nan AMR-One.

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For nan project, Aston retained its technological partners astatine Prodrive. After joining forces pinch Aston Martin successful 2004, nan company helped nan marque to scope people wins astatine Le Mans successful their DBR9 GT1 and assisted successful nan improvement of nan B09/60 Prototype. Before nan semipermanent business pinch Aston, nan group helped Subaru to their halcyon days successful nan World Rally Championship and put Ferrari backmost connected nan committee astatine Le Mans pinch nan 550 GT1.

However, each this occurrence came from modifying existing cars to spell racing, and Prodrive had ne'er built a title car from nan crushed up. Moreover, clip and abstraction astatine nan mill had to beryllium shared, arsenic nan squad was besides difficult astatine activity processing Mini's WRC entry. The consequence was an LMP1 that was against nan atom successful each way. As apical teams like Audi and Peugeot elected to move to closed canopies, Aston shockingly did nan opposite, preferring nan amended visibility and cooling of an open-air cockpit complete its closed-in Lola.

The cockpit's other resistance put further accent connected nan engine, which was conscionable arsenic unorthodox. Where Peugeot and Audi utilized turbodiesel power, Aston stayed pinch petrol, but downsized to a turbocharged inline-6.  While often seen successful roadworthy cars, nan consecutive six is almost unseen successful nan modern motorsports arena. Aston Martin, however, preferred nan portion arsenic it was constrictive capable to let aerial to travel done nan car. The tailor-made 2-liter portion was fixed a azygous turbocharger, making astir 540 horsepower.

Miraculously, Aston Martin and Prodrive were capable to hole nan car complete nan AMR-One successful conscionable half a year. Unfortunately, nan car would person nan gait and reliability of a car made successful six months.

The AMR-One made its debut astatine nan 6 Hours of Castellet astatine Paul Ricard. For qualifying, nan car was complete 5 seconds disconnected nan pace. To adhd reproach to injury, nan Rebellion Racing squad ran a Lola chassis identical to what Aston had utilized nan twelvemonth prior. The title wouldn't fare better. After a troublesome six hours of racing, reliability issues dropped nan car retired of classification 89 laps down nan leader.

Aston Martin elected to retreat from nan pursuing round, nan 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps, successful nan dream of getting their 2 entries arsenic prepared arsenic imaginable for Le Mans. It wouldn't help. Come qualifying astatine La Sarthe, nan fastest of nan 2 AMR-Ones stood a full 20 seconds disconnected nan gait of nan front-running Audis. Quicker than conscionable 1 LMP1 entry, nan 2 cars would commencement nan title down astir each of nan little classed LMP2 cars. Thankfully, nan mediocre reliability of nan cars put some entries retired of their misery almost instantly, pinch nan inline-6 connected 1 car tapping conscionable aft 2 laps in, pinch nan sister car doing nan aforesaid by thigh four.

Following humiliation astatine Le Mans, Aston Martin elected to propulsion nan older Lolas retired of retirement, moving nan B09/60 for nan remainder of nan 2011 play earlier focusing solely connected their GT programme from 2012 onwards.

The marque wouldn't beryllium seen successful nan apical level of endurance racing until nan Valkyrie's debut astatine nan Qatar 1812km. It was a chaotic return, with gearbox troubles sidelining nan No. 007 car and the doorway flying disconnected nan No. 009. Still, contempt nan squad finishing 23 laps disconnected pace, nan Valkyrie, successful its maiden race, did thing nan AMR-One ne'er accomplished: it vanished successful classification.