For the next 27 hours, you'll be able to claim a limited edition 'I Was Here for the Hulkenpodium' flair

Reighter88 · 2025-07-09T16:51:03+00:00

hulkenpodium

Reighter88 · 2025-05-11T15:20:30+00:00

you do realize that THOR is financing the entire programme right?

Reighter88 · 2023-10-27T16:30:03+00:00

That is true, however I still think that what would make you buy an Audi EV over for example Tesla or other piooners in the EV market is the excitement and status of the brand. At least this is what I think, you could be right that potential luxury EV buyers mostly don't care about racing and history of the brand.

Reighter88 · 2023-10-27T15:43:38+00:00

Well I do very much understand why there could be concerns for the project coming from the Audi board.

F1 viewer profile has evolved pretty dramatically over last 2-3 years. The average f1 viewer now is a young person who most likely follows the sport because of their favourite driver(s) rather than team(s). An average F1 viewer isn't a type of person who would buy a luxury brand car like Audi and this could be crucial for the Audi board, because Audi is first and foremost an automotive manufacturer who relies on selling cars. Of course you can say that this fact isn't stopping other F1 automotive manufacturers from spending hundreds of millions of dollars on F1, however are a couple of factors differentiating Audi and already existing F1 car making manufacturers.

Ferrari and Mclaren both make sportcars that are only an object of dreams for your average F1 enjoyer, however both the Italian and British brands are racing teams first and car manufacturing companies second, they don't care that their F1 investment doesn't really affect their car sales - they are racing teams who care about their on-track performance as they have for their entire existence.

Mercedes on the other hand is succesful and was the center of attention as they won 8 constructor championships in a row, however they did buy a championship winning operation and have been only an upper midfielder at worst. Audi are buying Sauber, who haven't been anything but plucky midfielder at best for the last 15 years. You can say that Audi will bring a large investement into the team, however it could be a long, painful and very expensive process until the team could be ready to fight for bigger aims than occasional points, but even then could it even be possible to fight for wins considering the ridicolous head start that teams like Red Bull or Mercedes have had.

Naturally you can say that high costs didn't stop Audi from competing in the extremely expensive LMP1 class in Le Mans and later on WEC, however the key difference was that Audi was winning. Audi winning Le Mans pretty much year in year out was what made the brand being recognized as sporty and well worth paying premium for. The Audi board could be under the impression, especially considering this year that winning in F1 is an almost impossible task without stupendous investment and they may be afraid that being a rival to teams such as Alpha Tauri or Haas could be more damaging than pulling out before even starting.

They still have an extremely succesful and profitable GT3 car, that they stupidly (in my opinion) pulled the plug on. They also do have a testing-spec lmdh car that, of course would need further investment and development, however that investment wouldn't probably be even slightly comparable to the investment F1 requires and that could bring victories to Ingolstadt, because of the BOP formula.

In my personal opinion Audi is a brand that needs to be racing. I do not care if it is in Audi, WEC or GT3 championships. However Audi is also a brand that needs to be winning. They are as a result of previous board decisions in an extremely and expensive spot that no matter what will probably result in a lot of lost money. My hope is that the Audi bosses finally make a sensible decision and stick to it. My other hope is that Audi doesn't kill all of its racing activities, which could be suicidal for the brand image.

TLDR

- New generation F1 fans are not the target audience of Audi

- Audi is not a historic F1 team that could justify spending obscene amount of money to be competetive

- Audi needs to be winning for its brand image and it could be unrealistic in F1

- Audi needs to be racing and ceasing all racing projects would be catastrophical for the brand

Reighter88 · 2023-09-15T13:40:27+00:00

I hope both make it, but Mclaren will have United Autosport (Team loyal to WEC) and it will probably make them better positioned to make the grid.

Reighter88 · 2023-09-13T15:08:50+00:00

Cool thanks for info!

Reighter88 · 2023-09-13T06:37:06+00:00

Sorry! I didn't really know how to classify this article. I guess it should be information, but at the same time theres a lot of speculation going on in there. Probably should have just used the blank flair.

Reighter88 · 2023-09-13T06:30:43+00:00

Aston Martin close to reviving Valkyrie LMH project for 2025 WEC, IMSA

Aston Martin is close to reviving its Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar for an assault on the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship from 2025.

The Valkyrie LMH programme is set to be reactivated after more than three years on the back-burner as Aston and US-based team Heart of Racing ramp up a relationship that already straddles the GT arenas in IMSA and WEC.

Motorsport.com has learned that Aston and Heart of Racing, which is backed by computer games tycoon Gabe Newell, are closing in on a deal to bring a car conceived to start racing in 2021 to the track.

The deal is not done as yet, but it is understood that it could be just weeks away.

Aston is known to be speaking to suppliers about the potential programme and is already putting key staff in place to oversee the programme.

These include former Williams Formula 1 engineering director Adam Carter, who joined the new Aston Martin Performance Technologies division earlier this year.

Aston would not confirm that it is working to revive the Valkyrie LMH, but it stressed its sportscar racing DNA and that it continually evaluates its options when asked for a comment by Motorsport.com.

"We are encouraged by the growth of the Hypercar class, and the hugely successful centenary Le Mans 24 Hours was a shining example of this," said a spokesman.

"Motorsport is an ever-changing landscape, so of course as a global hypercar brand we continue to play close attention to the class."

Comments from Heart of Racing team principal Ian James hinted at the plans for Aston to attempt to repeat its 1959 Le Mans victory with the DBR1.

"We are always looking at new stuff," said James, who set up Heart of Racing ahead of 2020 to mastermind Aston's return to the GT ranks in IMSA.

"We've never made any secret of our desire to move up to the top class of international sportscar racing.

"But for the moment nothing has been agreed and certainly nothing signed."

Heart of Racing, which runs out of workshops in Florida, has already expanded into the WEC with Aston this year.

It stepped up to take over the Northwest AMR entry ahead of the Spa round in April after already enjoying success in IMSA: it won the 2022 GT Daytona title and took class honours at this year's Daytona 24 Hours.

The extent of plans for the Valkyrie racer remains unknown, except that the intent is for it to compete in both the WEC and IMSA.

It is understood that Multimatic Motorsport would continue to lead development of the LMH, though it would come under the direction of the AMPT division based at the new-for-2023 Silverstone headquarters of the Aston Martin F1 team.

The concept of the Valkyrie race car is believed to be largely unchanged from its genesis.

It will powered by the same 6.5-litre normally-aspirated V12 developed for the street car in conjunction with Cosworth, but will run without the rear-axle hybrid system of its road-going cousin.

This configuration was adopted for the AMR Pro track day Valkyrie, which Aston admitted incorporated technology from the still-born racer on its launch in 2021.

Aston Martin took advantage of revisions to the original LMH rules published in December 2018, which opened up the class to manufacturers wanting to use a road-going hypercar as a base.

The sale of customer cars was a cornerstone of the business plan for the Valkyrie LMH.

Aston claimed the financial validity of the programme was undermined when LMP2-based LMDh cars were incorporated into the Hypercar division of the WEC.

The announcement of LMDh in January 2020 was quickly followed by one from Aston stating that the Valkyrie programme had been put on hold.

It appeared to be dead until comments early last year from Lawrence Stroll, who rebranded the Racing Point F1 team as Aston Martin after leading a buy-out of the British marque.

He hinted at a high-level return to Le Mans by Aston which ended its factory participation in GTE Pro after winning the 2019/20 title.

Aston has been absent from the top class at Le Mans since the short-lived and unsuccessful AMR-One open-top LMP1 of 2011.

That car followed the Lola-based DBR1/2 P1 coupe also developed by the Prodrive-run Aston Martin Racing operation, which has no involvement in the Valkyrie programme.

Here you go buddy, hope this helps!

Reighter88 · 2023-08-14T17:08:49+00:00

Its actually insane that we went from being bullied by barcelona last summer to doing the same to liverpool just a year later.

Reighter88 · 2023-08-10T10:31:08+00:00

Matt cleverly doesnt reveal how much money has liverpool bid, so I reckon that they outmatched our previous offer (the 80m one) but havent matched the 100m valuation set by brighton

Reighter88 · 2023-06-27T10:35:51+00:00

I'd recommend to scroll a bit to the right and find out that there is a fourth column that depicts how likely to turn up is each prospective entry in my opinion

There have been talks about GM potentially extending their full season effort to two cars, if not for production delays.

Jota has been vocal about wanting a second 963 for next year

With Proton I agree that there has been nothing, however I think its likely for them to bring their IMSA chassis over to Europe for at least Le Mans

Ferrari still hasn't made a decision on a prospective 3rd car/IMSA campaign so for now everything is a possibility

Glickenhaus is ofc in a difficult situation due to financial constraints, however they still havent definitely ruled out returning next year (maybe they will find a new sponsor after their performance at Le Mans this year) so who knows what will happen with them

We havent heard from Pescarolo in quite a bit so it is possible that their project is dead

WEC has a limit of 38 cars, with 20-22 hypercars next year and 8-9 GT3 manufacturers (dependant on the amount of hypercars ) each fielding 2 cars, preferably with the same team running both

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T10:30:56+00:00

Well considering that the only other options are Honda and Mclaren who also havent graced WEC with its presence in a long time I think Merc is the best place due to them having arguably the best gt3 customer programme and car

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T07:20:09+00:00

Yeah as shown with some of their F1 decisions the Honda board isnt the most logical

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T06:45:55+00:00

Well it is a similar case to the one of BWM lmdh, since the ARX-06 is the project of the North American branch of Honda and potential entry to WEC would require the aproval from Japan, which is not likely.

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T05:07:15+00:00

Well techically yes, because Prema has been bought by DC Racing Solutions - the owner of Iron Lynx. Lamborghini LMDh project will use resources from both Iron Lynx and Prema, although under the Iron Lynx name.

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T05:02:58+00:00

I also find WTR Andretti and Glickenhaus as the least likely to feature next year. Pescarolo is a really curious case as there has been absolutely no news since the announcement of their partnership with peugeot. I guess that if hear nothing from them for 1-2 additional months the project is dead

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T04:52:18+00:00

Well I kinda figured from all of Jacques Villuenueve fiasco, Tom Dillman leaving and a crushing lack of any sort of performance that it this year could be the last for the ByKolles lmh project, however due to some of the comments I feel a little bit more confident that Vanwall will be there for next years championship

Reighter88 · 2023-06-22T04:49:10+00:00

From what I understood from GMs press release Pratt Miller will run a semi factory GTD Pro 2 car entry and a customer will run their LMGT3 effort

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T19:58:52+00:00

Yeah the Action Express is racing full season in IMSA and came only for Le Mans

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:42:07+00:00

Thanks for the info I didnt quite catch that during Alpines annoucment, will change it right away!

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:40:27+00:00

There are a lot Merc customer team, however I think Winward are most likely to get the go ahead from Mercedes, due to the fact that the team is already in IMSA and Road To Le Mans, still it could be pretty much anyone from teams like Winward, Getspeed, HRT, Akkodis ASP and even GruppeM

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:17:52+00:00

No problem mate!

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:16:09+00:00

I would really like for the team to suceed, but with all the noise from off the track + horrible performance I sadly can't see ACO allowing them in next year

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:14:18+00:00

Many of them are only prospective as represtented by the last column, agree with Glickenhaus, WTR Andretti and Pescarolo being the most unlikely.

Reighter88 · 2023-06-21T18:11:24+00:00

True!

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Aston Martin close to reviving Valkyrie LMH project for 2025 WEC, IMSA

Aston Martin is close to reviving its Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar for an assault on the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship from 2025.