Aston Martin has claimed a production car lap record for the Valkyrie at Silverstone’s Grand Prix layout, with a 1:56.42 lap in the hands of Darren Turner. That makes it more than 10 seconds faster than the previous record holder, a modified GT2 RS that recorded 2:06.83 a couple of years ago. Not a tremendously fair fight, 911 against carbon-tubbed V12 Aston hypercar, but road legal is road legal…
Frankly it’s an absurd time for something that must eventually pass an MOT in the UK, the Valkyrie among some very serious race cars going that far under two minutes. It’s faster than the GT3 lap record at Silverstone, for example, a 1:58.165 in a Huracan GT3 Evo that would have been achieved on slicks. It’s faster than the old GT1 glass of GTs, too, which never got under two minutes. And it’s within fractions of the Formula Renault 2.0 best time (1:56.052) and LM GTE (1:55.762, for a Ferrari 488 GTE Evo). Plus, for some context on mightily rapid against face-bendingly fast, an LMP1 car is almost 20 seconds faster than a Valkyrie (1:37.289) and an F1 car very nearly half a minute (1:27.097). Staggering.
Aston has released a video to mark the moment and show off the frankly bonkers speed achieved by Turner and the Valkyrie. It’s doing 170mph on the approach to Abbey (!), 180mph towards Brooklands, and hits 200 on the Hangar Straight. Often Silverstone GP feels a bit too senior for road cars. Not this one.
It could go quicker still, as there was rain earlier in the day of the record attempt (this is Silverstone, after all), so the surface wasn’t at its grippiest. A bike event had also spoiled the line a bit, reckoned Turner. He added: “The acceleration and top speed is way beyond anything that I’ve raced at Le Mans. With active aero, and the car’s ability to optimise downforce as you accelerate, the speed just keeps climbing… The car performed brilliantly. I’m not sure I had anything more to give, but maybe on a day that was kinder with the conditions we could find a few more tenths if not more. It blows my mind that this is a road-legal car that you can use to drive to Silverstone and then go faster than the pole lap record in the British GT championship.” That’s exactly what Aston did, in fact, the Valkyrie seen pootling along the Northamptonshire lanes as part of the video. Some car. Hopefully there’s an uninterrupted onboard to follow in due course - that should be one hell of a watch.
