Aston Martin has entered the World Endurance Championship with their Valkyrie hypercar (Image: Getty)
Aston Martin, Ferrari, BMW, Porsche. Many will agree they are a collection of the greatest car brands in living memory. All four have dabbled in Formula One at one stage or another but are now among 13 manufacturers part of a major revolution in sportscar racing. New regulations have reshaped the heart of endurance racing, and could make the World Endurance Championship a threat to F1 in the coming years.
The difference? A shift in focus to make race cars closer to road car technology which has seen some of the world’s top brands flock to get a slice of the pie. Among those is Aston Martin, joining the series in 2025 with their successful luxury Valkyrie sports car, penned by none other than Adrian Newey.
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The Valkyrie is also a limited-edition road-going hypercar (Image: Getty)
Adam Carter, Aston Martin head of endurance motorsport, stressed the Valkyrie “leans significantly into the DNA of the road car, rather than being developed as a prototype, bespoke racing car.”
Just seven years ago, the World Endurance Championship, founded in 2012, looked in turmoil. One manufacturer, Toyota, lined up in the top LMP1 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans after Audi and Porsche had fled the nest to Formula E.
An ambitious Hypercar programme, launched for 2022, has been the catalyst for success, with brands given two options. Manufacturers could either design a bespoke race car or build competition machines based on existing road-going supercars.
When the new rules launched, WEC even required that a minimum of 20 road-homologated cars be built to compete. This law was later ditched, but it suggested that manufacturers didn’t need to throw millions into race-car development for just one championship.
Team WRT run a BMW M4 race car in the LMGT3 class (Image: Getty)
Some took them up on the offer, with previous entrants Glickenhaus producing road-going versions of the SCG007S and Vanwall with their Vandervell 1000.
Toyota had even developed a GR Hypercar that is closely related to its GR Super Sport race car before production was axed. Despite this, Adam stresses that road-going models would still differ from the race cars in one or two areas.
He told Express.co.uk: “The road version of Valkyrie exploits a number of technologies not permitted within the racing series, largely the use of active aerodynamics achieved via ride height control, as well as active control of the front and rear wing, as well as some underfloor devices.
“Beyond this, there are a number of design details that are specific to racing, such as ‘quick change’ front and rear bodywork to assist frequent servicing, or repair from on track incidents!”
The race car is based closely on the BMW M4 production model (Image: BMW)
Alongside Hypercar, WEC has introduced a new LMGT3 category which enjoyed its big launch last year. These cars are much closer to street-legal production models, with engineers refining cars anyone can buy for their driveway for the racetrack.
This is a step further than the old LMGTE rules package which was solely based around bespoke racing cars. A McLaren 720GTS supercar is run by the United Autosports team, a machine which is an almost carbon copy of the road-going model available to buyers for just over £200,000.
However, race driver James Cottingham stressed there were still some major differences with the race cars fully kitted out for competition. When asked about the big parallels between the pair, he told Express.co.uk: Grip. Downforce. These cars are on rails.
“If you jumped out of a LMGT3 and into a road car, you’d throw it off into turn one. It’s unreal. I’m used to it now but the first couple of months of driving these cars, it is the downforce that gets you.”
British-based United Autosports races with a McLaren 720S (Image: Getty)
Kelvin Van der Linde, who shares his Team WRT-run BMW M4 GT3 with MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi tends to agree.
Speaking at the 6 Hours of Imola, Kelvin said: “These are still purpose-built race cars, They look and feel like the road-going sister you could call it. But they are still purpose but race cars and you cannot compare.
“Yes it’s got the same concept, the engine is very much the same kind of concept, we try and keep it as close as possible to the road going car and that is to a big extent the success of GT racing at the moment but there’s not many parallels you can draw.”
The boom in manufacturers has led to a surge in interest in WEC, with 113million people tuning in for the 24 Hours of Le Mans across 196 countries last year. The series claims this was 2.5 times higher than the number watching the race in 2022.
It’s even higher than the average viewing figures for one F1 Grand Prix which is thought to be around 70million. Kevin Magnussen swapped the Haas F1 team for WEC’s BMW team for 2025 and is excited at the prospect of new eyes on the series.
Speaking to Express.co.uk at Imola, he said: “The championship is booking right now, so many big manufacturers, so many great drivers and there’s more coming. I don’t think sports car racing has been as attractive as it is right now. It’s great to be in one of the most competitive forms of motorsport in the world.”
The model looks almost identical to the road-going 720S priced at over £200,000 (Image: Getty)
It’s not just competition that’s driving manufacturers, with motorsport always seen as a test bed for future road car development.
Aston Martin’s Adam Carter stressed this was still a major part of the draw with work already underway on the British marque’s next supercar project.
He added: “Aston Martin Performance Technologies (AMPT) are a proactive conduit for all of the company’s racing programmes, whether Formula 1, Le Mans Hypercar, or GT racing into future products.
“Indeed, the carbon fibre chassis and bodywork for Aston Martin’s next mid-engine Hypercar, the Valhalla, being engineered alongside the Formula 1 car.”
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