Aston Martin

A presence at La Sarthe since the interwar years, Aston Martin shares with the 24 Hours of Le Mans one of the longest love affairs in British motorsport. The company founded in 1913 built its reputation there as a maker of fast, durable, beautifully engineered sports cars — long before outright glory finally arrived. It came in 1959. The green DBR1 of Aston Martin Racing, driven by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby — the future father of the Cobra and architect of the Ford GT40 programme — won outright after an intense battle with Ferrari. That victory, combined with the World Sports Car Championship title secured the same season, remains the sporting pinnacle of Aston Martin's endurance history. The marque never really left Le Mans, however. For more than six decades it became a mainstay of the GT categories, with cars that grew familiar to the Sarthe crowds: the DBR9 in the 2000s, then the Vantage GTE which collected multiple class wins, keeping the flame alive while waiting for a return to the very top. That return has taken the most spectacular form imaginable: the Valkyrie. Derived from the road-going hypercar conceived with Adrian Newey and powered by a screaming naturally-aspirated V12, it made its Hypercar class debut in 2025, entered by The Heart of Racing. As the only car on the grid directly descended from an extreme road model, the Valkyrie embodies the original spirit of the Hypercar regulations and has put Aston Martin back in the fight for outright victory, in both the FIA WEC and IMSA. In 2026, the British marque continues the campaign with its factory Valkyries in the World Endurance Championship. Sixty-seven years after Salvadori and Shelby, the goal is clear: a second outright win for Aston Martin, and a place for the Valkyrie alongside the DBR1 in the lineage of Astons that left their mark on Le Mans forever.

• Country : GBR
• Founded : 1913
• Le Mans wins : 1
• First win : 1959
• Last win : 1959