All That Fuss? Worth It

At last, our chance to drive the British hypercar behind all the hype

- Jeremy Taylor

IN 20 YEARS OR SO, PEOPLE WILL LOOK back on this car and say we were mad to build it. That’s why the Valkyrie is so amazing—because we did go out and we did build it.’

Aston Martin’s Design Director Miles Nurnberger is not kidding; the company’s first hypercar has come at huge cost. But today the negatives and question-marks hovering around the project are pushed to the sidelines and instead Aston are celebrating what can be achieved when a manufacturer takes an extreme view on car design and, eventually, delivers.

A Formula I testing session is just about to start at the Bahrain International Circuit, but not before we get to drive the Valkyrie. It is an appropriate venue for a road-legal car that has more genuine F1 links than most.

This being the oft-delayed Valkyrie, the event refuses to run to schedule. I have flown in to be met by a group of worried-looking mechanics in the pit-lane garage. They are crowded around the mid-mounted engine, cables leading to a Deutronic Power Processor, which, on googling, I discover is an industrial-sized battery charger you will not find in Halford’s.

Turns out—and you could not make this up—the hypercar that caused a PR disaster by breaking down at the Festival of Speed in 2021 has a problem. On this occasion, it is not a 5 Rs 500) part that sits between the low-voltage and high-voltage batteries, as was the case at Goodwood. No, apparently the problem is the driver before me, who has pressed the KERS button too many times on a single lap in an attempt to use some of the power captured during braking, meaning the 2.5-million Rs 25 crore) Valkyrie will not fly.