The Valkyrie AMR-Pro is an aerodynamic beauty that can corner at excessive speeds, and tear racetracks apart.
When the idea of the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro was first put forward, it gained a few skeptical and doubtful critics. This was because Adrian Newey, the designer of the AMR-Pro, promised a car that would fly round the LeMans track as fast as an LMP1 car. Not only that, but Aston Martin also boasted that the AMR-Pro could keep up with an F1 car on its tail. This was a massive statement by a company whose roots led back to only road-going cars. The sheer confidence in the Valkyrie AMR-Pro would prove vital and probably aid it to pure engineering mastery and success.
The Valkyrie AMR-Pro is rather light (2,200 lbs) and is on another level, and is actually painfully fast and nimble. The car's designer, Adrian Newley, explained how the carbon tub was designed to keep everything as tight and compact as possible. He stated that the carbon tub is actually the structure of the car, and that it has been designed to have no spare space whatsoever. He then went on to say that the design of the car resembles an exoskeleton, with no need for added space or weight.
The Valkyrie AMR-Pro is derived as a highly advanced and uprated sibling of the Aston Martin Valkyrie. The AMR-Pro has a race-optimized chassis, along with added aerodynamic and powertrain technologies, which received much respect when it was first showcased at the Motor Show in 2018. With its impressive powertrain and aerodynamic capabilities, it's safe to say that the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro was made aerodynamically perfect for the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Aston Martin turned to their partners, Red Bull Advanced Technologies, for help in the development of the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro, and the result was a potent and vicious race machine. A modified Cosworth engine was placed in the Valkyrie AMR-Pro. The Cosworth engine was upgraded quite significantly. The 6.5-liter naturally-aspirated V12 engine was now able to produce an insane 1000 hp at 11,000 rpm. But the Valkyrie AMR-Pro’s most impressive feature is, of course, its aerodynamic features. A revised Valkyrie chassis was placed on the Valkyrie AMR-Pro, which added an extra 380 mm of wheelbase while also adding a wider 96 mm front track and a 115 mm wider rear track.
The drivers' view of the track in the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro is incredibly clear and crisp. This incredible view allows drivers to approach corners at ridiculously fast speeds and velocity, without the fear of sliding or any understeer occurring. It is because of the Valkyrie AMR-Pro’s slick Michelin tires and immense stopping power that it drives with controllability and insane grip, even when the tires are at very high temperatures. Cornering in the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro is an experience in itself. It's as though a regular car’s cornering has just been fast tracked and compressed into a short burst of excitement.
Incredibly, the Valkyrie AMR-Pro has twice the downforce of its road-legal sibling, which allows the AMR-Pro to reach and maintain a lateral acceleration in excess of 3G. These insane achievements were made possible by a savage aerodynamic package, a package which added another 266 mm in length to the Valkyrie, and which also aided that fierce downforce. The engineering of the Valkyrie AMR-Pro’s underbody and over-wing airflow was beyond formidable and ultimately created one of the most aerodynamically advanced vehicles in the world. It is estimated that the Aston Matin Valkyrie AMR-Pro could achieve 6,000 lbs of aerodynamic assistance, which is impressive to say the least.
While many components of the Valkyrie AMR-Pro have been upgraded from the regular road-going Valkyrie, their aesthetics remain almost identical. The low yet wide stance remains, the bulked up fenders remain, the large-diameter wheels remain, and as seen on the regular Valkyrie, the AMR-Pro possesses a scoop on the roof that leads to a rear fin, perfectly aligned with the rear wing, thus aiding the car's aerodynamics. Although the shape and aesthetic design of both cars remain very similar, the Valkyrie AMR-Pro sits a few levels above. This is because of its aerodynamic advances. Aston Martin tweaked the car's aerodynamics to increase its downforce by a considerable amount. The Valkyrie AMR-Pro possesses much larger wings at both ends of the vehicle, with new wing blades being placed behind the front wheels. These wing blades were an amazing engineering decision that allowed hot air to pass through a vent around the brakes without affecting the downforce at the front end. An additional vent was placed on the hood, just ahead of the windshield, while the headlights were made up of very light and thin vertical slits that were situated at the outward edges of the fenders. Although both the regular road-going Valkyrie and the track-hungry Valkyrie AMR-Pro both consisted of large-diameter wheels, on the AMR-Pro, the wheels were slightly downsized to an 18-inch Michelin set that included Uber-sticky rubber, providing the ultimate grip and balance.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-Pro is certainly a car that pushes all possible boundaries. This is mainly because it's a supercar that wasn’t restricted by race restrictions. The end result is an aerodynamic, powerful, and fast car that could easily compete with insanely fast race cars. It seems as though Aston Martin took the already aggressive Valkyrie and turned it into an even more aggressive, aerodynamically advanced, and hard-core race car!
Source: Aston Martin
Tom is currently working as a radio presenter, film producer and also a writer. He is a true Mancunian, with a big passion for the media industry, he feels privileged to be in so many different sectors of the industry.
