WEC Season Preview: Aston Martin Hypercar
- Michael Williams
- Apr 7
- 4 min read
After a difficult debut season, Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing return for a second season in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) Hypercar category. With progress made towards the end of 2025, it promises to be another step forward for the team in 2026.
As expected, 2025 was a difficult start to life for Aston Martin and their pair of Valkyrie’s. In their race debut, the No.007 retired, whereas the No.009 managed to reach the chequered flag, but a disappointing 23 laps behind the overall race winner after one of its doors stuck open on track.
A similar trend continued for the majority of the season, especially for the No.007, which never featured in the top ten across the eight round calendar. Despite this, the team made remarkable progress across their debut campaign, which resulted in two points finishes to round off the season for the No.009.
An impressive fifth place finish at Fuji highlighted the teams’ determination and development, which was followed up by a seventh place finish in the season finale at Bahrain.
Each manufacturer across the Hypercar category invests heavily in their programmes, meaning it was always going to be a long road for any new team, however, the Aston Martin THOR Team can use the momentum they built up at the end of last year in order to hit the ground running in 2026.
With several other manufacturers bringing ‘Joker’ updates to the upcoming season, Aston Martin will have their work cut out. The likes of Ferrari and Toyota will look to lead from the front, meanwhile you’ll have brands such as Peugeot and Alpine who will be looking to take a step forward, not to forget the series newcomers, Genesis.
On one hand, this paints a highly competitive season ahead, on the other, it presents a fantastic opportunity for the whole Aston Martin THOR team to show the potential of this programme.
A continuation in driver line up
Aston Martin have opted to remain with the same six drivers for the 2026 season, hoping it will give the team the best opportunity to continually develop the car during the early stages of this programme.
The No.007 retains Tom Gamble, Harry Tincknell and Ross Gunn. The trio will be hoping for significant progress this season after a lacklustre 2025. On the other side of the garage, the No.009 returns with Alex Riberas, Marco Sørensen and Roman De Angelis. Gunn and De Angelis, the teams’ full time IMSA GTP drivers, will return as the ‘endurance’ drivers for 2026, joining for the longer races.
All six drivers have impressive resumes, notably in GT3 racing. They bring a wealth of expertise and experience that the team will no doubt look to use to unlock the potential of the returning Valkyrie.
The Heart of Racing also return to the WEC grid with two LMGT3 cars, compared to the one they ran in 2025. Whether this will remove resources from the Hypercar portion of the team, or whether it will provide extra motivation as they hope to produce a four car assault on both championships is still unclear. However, it is certainly turning into a compelling year for the team.
What the team said ahead of an exciting sophomore season.
“Throughout 2025, as the programme grew and developed, we achieved a great deal as a team, but we also learned a considerable amount,” said Aston Martin THOR Team Principal Ian James.
“The drivers as a group delivered over and above what we asked from them. That included a lot of work at the very beginning that required them to dig deep. But it also means that we have generated a hugely valuable hub of understanding and knowledge about Valkyrie that will be valuable as we move into season two.
“As we continue to understand more about how to exploit the competitive nature of Valkyrie, it's a great opportunity for all our drivers to use what they have learned and push on to achieve more in 2026, and we have every faith that they will.”
The teams’ Head of Endurance Motorsport, Adam Carter, had this to say on the progress the team has made: “We're a year into the Valkyrie programme and we've seen a great deal of progress in this time, not just technically, but also with how the drivers, personnel and the programme as a whole has developed culturally.
“A successful international programme obviously takes time to grow so that it can be shaped into one that breeds consistent success, and we are still in the early stages of this process. There is more ground to cover before we achieve our objectives, but we also can see that we are clearly travelling in the right direction.
“The Rolex 24 at Daytona is the most famous and important endurance event in North America, and as such presents another key milestone for Valkyire, and one that will provide us with more valuable data that we can use to feed that understanding and growth of Valkyrie's performance.”
It’s clear that everyone at Aston Martin THOR Team is very pleased with the progress and development of not just the Valkyrie, but the entire team of personnel behind the programme. As the season opener at Imola approaches, the start of a new WEC season is beckoning, and for Aston Martin and their Hypercar crew, it’s shaping up to be a promising year.
Cars and games actually have a lot in common — especially when it comes to precision, control, and performance. Racing games, for example, really try to capture that real driving feeling.
I’ve also been exploring different platforms out of curiosity and came across bet365 — interesting to see how different systems are designed
Hi, I came across this site while browsing a long forum thread where people were discussing online platforms in Ethiopia. Someone dropped a link, and I followed it out of curiosity. In the middle of exploring, I opened https://win-win.et/ and found it quite easy to understand. The layout didn’t confuse me, and I could go through everything step by step without feeling lost.
Great insights on the Aston Martin Hypercar! While performance is crucial, I can’t help but think how design also plays a role—kind of like mastering levels in Geometry Dash Subzero. It’s all about precision and style!