Seven gears forward, zero excuses

What is a car that is not intended for everyday use?

That does not serve, but demands?

The new Aston Martin Valkyrie LM is not designed to be subordinate to its driver. Rather, it is the vehicle that takes the initiative: it recognizes what its driver does not yet know - about himself, about speed, about control.

It is only logical that the tailor-made training program provides access to this hypercar - not as an add-on, but as a prerequisite. Coaching, track analysis, simulator, precise data feedback. The driver is not the user, but the student. And the Valkyrie LM, his teacher, is data-based and focused. Detention? At any time.

The Aston Martin Valkyrie LM is not the product of a compromise. But of an idea. An idea that first entered the public domain in 2016 under the codename AM-RB 001 - a collaboration between Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing, the Formula 1 team. This is where Adrian Newey comes into play: the man who has been thinking the unthinkable for decades - and then drawing it. Comparisons with Gordon Murray's McLaren F1 are justified - not out of marketing convenience, but because the Valkyrie is exactly that: Adrian Newey's very personal vision of a road car. One that is based on decades in the wind tunnel. 14 world championship titles were won with cars that came from Newey's head - plus at least ten that only just failed. And while other engineers explained, Newey preferred to tinker in silence - so obsessed that legends circulate of how he once slipped his designs through a letter slot to avoid interference. True or not - it fits.

The man who paints walls duck-egg blue when battleship gray takes the air out of his head did not create a vehicle with the Valkyrie, but an aerodynamic thesis. And now, as part of the Aston Martin Formula 1 team, Newey is returning to his roots to help Aston Martin win Formula 1. So much for ambition and motivation.

This attitude also permeates every technical decision in the Valkyrie LM. The 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V12 engine, developed by Cosworth, 707 hp - does not simply deliver power, but reveals a movement behavior that only becomes accessible through learning. The open-loop torque control, originally calibrated for works teams in top-level racing, enables an immediate response to the accelerator pedal - a closeness to mechanics that has long since been lost in road traffic.

There will only be ten of them. Ten vehicles that operate at the interface between motorsport and personal borderline experience. An exclusive paddock - not defined by wealth alone, but by a willingness to work with oneself and the machine. This Aston Martin is not intended to be a consumer good. It is a system, an environment, an experience that is only accessible to a few, because it demands more than ownership - namely time, curiosity and a willingness to develop.

In its form, the Valkyrie LM almost looks like a fragment from another discipline. Not like an automobile, but like a sculpture in motion. Its lines are based less on the desire to impress than on the need to direct air, to guide mass. What emerges is not decorative - it is precise. Beauty recognized as a by-product of function. The cockpit is an uncompromisingly designed safety space with FIA-certified six-point seat belt, individually shaped bucket seat, integrated driver display and fire suppression system. Reduced - not out of asceticism, but out of concentration.

And yet, for all its engineering proximity, the LM is not a sober object. It is almost artistic in what it triggers. Because it does not allow its owners to hide behind the machine. Those who drive it cannot delegate. No automated assistance system, no illusion of control. Instead, it is an invitation to confront oneself - with one's own reaction, one's own perception of risk, one's own courage.

With the Valkyrie LM, Aston Martin is taking a step that hardly any other manufacturer dares to take: a non-road-legal, ready-to-use Le Mans hypercar, built on the basis of the same vehicle that will compete in the WEC and IMSA in 2025. The same platform. The same drive. Just adapted - not to curb performance, but to make it accessible.

Exclusivity here does not just mean availability, but depth. The cars are stored, looked after and transported to events by Aston Martin. Two exclusive race track days, a handover event and a private annual finale in Gaydon make up the first year of the UNLEASHED experience - including coaching, simulator, individual analysis and personal driver equipment, including HANS-compatible helmet equipment.

The LM is the opposite of the everyday hypercar. It is not comfortable - but clear. Not loud - but focused. It doesn't speak to everyone. But if you get involved, you will not only experience a vehicle, but a new relationship to speed, to your own perception - and to the question of how far you are prepared to go.