The Valkyrie may be one of the most impractical production cars ever created, but there’s a good reason for that. While it carries a license plate and is street-legal, its true home is the race track. Although hypercar manufacturers often throw around the phrase “race car for the road,” few vehicles live up to the status as perfectly as the Valkyrie. A hot lap of the Top Gear test track proves just how extreme Aston Martin’s flagship really is.
At the Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, UK, The Stig put the Valkyrie through its paces, setting a staggering lap time of 1 minute and 9.6 seconds. Powered by a naturally aspirated Cosworth V-12, the Valkyrie dethroned the Koenigsegg Jesko Attack as the fastest road-going production car on the leaderboard, shaving 1.3 seconds off the previous record.
Predictably, the Valkyrie is quite the handful around the 1.75-mile track. Even with a skilled driver behind the wheel, it gives the impression of a beast that’s hard to tame. We can only imagine what the track-only AMR Pro version must be like at full throttle. Fitting slick tires to the standard Valkyrie would likely shave even more time off the lap, but doing so would strip it of its title as the fastest road-legal car.
We honestly can’t think of too many road cars that could dethrone Adrian Newey’s masterpiece. The Mercedes-AMG One springs to mind as another hypercar benefitting from Formula 1 DNA. After all, it has already claimed the title for the fastest production vehicle around the challenging Nürburgring and other circuits. Given the sophisticated aero trickery, Ferrari’s new F80 might also be able to claim the top spot. Maybe the Rimac Nevera R could also take a crack at claiming first place.
However, it’ll take a while before a street car comes close to the outright lap record held by the Renault R24. The 2004 Formula 1 race car powered by a mighty V-10 engine completed the Top Gear course in a blistering 59 seconds. Perhaps the McMurtry Spéirling could have a go at beating the F1 car, but the diminutive single-seater machine is not road-legal.
Source:
Top Gear / YouTube