Aston Martin has revealed the first drivers for its 2025 World Endurance Championship campaign at the same time as confirming the Valkyrie AMR-LMH will miss January’s Daytona 24 Hours.
Harry Tincknell and Alex Riberas have been named in the two Hypercar class entries by Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing factory team that will represent the British marque in both the WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship next year.
Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours class winner Tincknell joins the Aston line-up after playing a key role in the development of the Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar as a member of the Multimatic Motorsports driver roster.
Canadian-headquartered Multimatic co-developed the AMR-LMH and is a service-provider for a team that will be known as Aston Martin THOR.
Factory driver Riberas is moving over from THOR’s Aston Martin GT squad, which he joined in 2020 and has since taken four GT Daytona Pro wins in IMSA and one in WEC LMGT3.
Aston announced the first drivers for the Valkyrie on Thursday ahead of the scheduled reveal of the 2025 WEC entry list on Friday.
Teams are required to nominate at least one name per car on the submission of their entries.
Tincknell, who claimed his second Le Mans victory driving a works Aston Martin Vantage GTE in GTE Pro in 2020, described the chance to return to the manufacturer as “an absolute honour” and “a pinch yourself moment”.
“I believe the car will be a firm fan favourite with its amazing looks and the incredible sound of the V12 engine,” said the 33-year-old Briton.
“It’s been exciting to be part of the initial development testing, and the DNA of the car feels strong.”
Riberas, who first raced for the nascent THOR squad under the Team Seattle banner in IMSA in 2014, said that it is “a great honour to be chosen as a driver for such an exciting project”.
“I have been part of THOR for the past 10 years and to be able to continue my journey with them, now at the pinnacle of endurance racing, is simply a dream come true,” continued the Spaniard, 31.
Aston Martin is reviving the race numbers #007 and #009, which marks the use of its cars by double-agent James Bond in fiction and on film, for the Valkyrie WEC campaign.
Aston won the GT1 class at Le Mans with a factory DBR9 bearing #009 in 2007 and 2008. Tincknell is listed in #007 and Riberas in #009.
The announcement did not go into detail on the decision to miss Daytona.
It states only that the Valkyrie AMR-LMH will make its IMSA debut in March at the Sebring 12 Hours, round two of the series, rather than in the Daytona season-opener.
Aston talked about a Daytona 2024 debut for the racing Valkyrie on the launch of the programme in October 2023, but the rhetoric changed in the summer and it refused to confirm that it would be present at the opening round of the IMSA series.
A change in the WEC regulations is understood to be behind its reticence to confirm its participation at Daytona and its eventual decision not to give the car its debut in a 24-hour race.
Aston and THOR originally planned to field solo entries in both WEC and IMSA, but was forced to expand its world championship attack after a new rule mandating two-car entries from manufacturers competing in the Hypercar class was confirmed at Le Mans in June.
It stated as recently as this month’s 2024 WEC finale that the homologation of the AMR-LMH would be completed in time to contest Daytona on 25/26 January, while drawing back from a commitment to take part.
The identity of the drivers who will form the remainder of the THOR line-up across its three entries in WEC and IMSA is unclear.
The team and Aston have stressed that its search would begin within its own twin rosters of drivers.
So far it has admitted that the Valkyrie has been driven by Tincknell and Riberas, Marco Sorensen, Mario Farnbacher, Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis, as well as by Aston stalwart Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke, who was formerly with the marque, in the early shakedown phase.
It is also believed that further drivers have taken part in testing of the Valkyrie since its first run in July, during which time it has completed 12,500km (7750 miles).
THOR team principal Ian James has hinted that there could be significant crossover between the line-ups for the two series, which only clash once, in May with Spa and Laguna Seca, over the course of 2025.
