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Pro vs slow: can a normal human handle the Aston Martin Valkyrie?

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Pro vs slow: can a normal human handle the Aston Martin Valkyrie? | Top Gear

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Pro vs slow: can a normal human handle the Aston Martin Valkyrie?

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Pro vs slow: can a normal human handle the Aston Martin Valkyrie?

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Jack Rix: After 721 years in development, we have a Valkyrie at Speed Week. And when I say we have one, we’re not talking about a couple of mollycoddled demo laps with an instructor looking disapprovingly over our shoulder. Save for a couple of engineers keeping tabs on its vitals, briefing us on the start-up procedure and tucking it in for the night, they’ve literally lobbed us the keys to deploy it as we see fit on road and track. For five whole days.

May we remind you this is no ordinary car. Even calling it a car seems a bit of a stretch. It’s the brain biscuit of Adrian Newey who cares not about your comfort, or eardrums, or ability to parallel park or listen to your favourite podcast. His only goal with the Valkyrie was to build something with ludicrous, near-F1 track speed, and then to stick a numberplate on it.

And that’s the craziest bit of all for a car with a Cosworth 6.5-litre V12 engine that screams to over 11,000rpm, that also has an e-motor in the seven-speed sequential gearbox for a total of 1,139bhp. Weight? Just 1,270kg dry. Aero? Lots of it – 1,100kg at 137mph, which seems oddly specific. And now I’m wondering quite what we’ve let ourselves in for. Look how nuts it is! Can any normal human being handle it?

Words: Jack Rix & Jethro Bovingdon
Photography: John Wycherley & Mark Riccioni

Jethro Bovingdon: Jack, don’t doubt yourself! Yes, the sheer potential of the Valkyrie seems alien and intimidating. But the best racecars are usually pretty easy to drive – up to a point, at least. The Valkyrie is so single minded, its chassis and mechanical makeup so pure that it doesn’t have to overcome any inherent compromises or weaknesses. Think about it. Small, super stiff carbon tub, perfect suspension geometry, low centre of gravity and all that downforce might take a lot of time to truly master... but in the meantime it just means stability and confidence. You’ll be bouncing off the rev limiter in no time.

JR: Bouncing off the tyre wall, more like. Did I mention it costs £2.5m and I had to sign off my house as collateral on the insurance? OK, chin up... let’s do this. You’re right of course – I’ve driven hugely intimidating, downforce laden cars aplenty in my time and so long as you stay within your own limits all that grip, balance and predictability is your friend. Plus, it’s just two pedals, two paddles and an oddly shaped steering wheel – a bit like a very fast Audi TT. I guess we have a kind of pro versus slow situation here. If the Valkyrie works for us both, it should work for everyone.

JB: And if it doesn’t... well, at least we’ve driven a Valkyrie! This will be A Very Good Day. Just don’t crash. And if you do, make sure it’s such a big one that Aston Martin has to pretend to be more concerned for your health than its precious hypercar. I would suggest Turn 1 is ideal for this.

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JR: What about my kids?

JB: “Daddy hasn’t been the same since that Valkyrie crash.” Sounds pretty cool to me.

With that, Jack elegantly lowers himself into the hypercar conceived by Adrian Newey and dragged into being by the Herculean efforts of Aston Martin. Life will never be quite the same again.

JR: Mother of God. The first time I floored it was something I’ll never forget. Yes, the throttle is pin sharp and the acceleration is frantic, but you get none of the V12 scream you experience from the outside – just a wall of noise and vibration and a rigid mounted V12 trying to burrow into your spine. It’s breathtaking, and the way it flows in the fast corners and rotates in the slower ones is just sensational. Of course, I’m braking too early and lifting when the downforce probably has me covered, but I’m taking chunks out of my time each lap and that says it all really. Very quickly you realise this is what it’s designed to do... dare I say it feels friendly? OK, your turn.

JB: [Once back in pitlane] It’s actually pretty hard to put into words, isn’t it? All the stuff I said to you – most of which I believed at the time – is true, but somehow that gorgeous balance, grip and poise melds with the brutal noise and monster performance to make something more than the sum of its parts. More than the sum of a V12 that revs to the moon combined with the huge downforce generated. It’s otherworldly in terms of capability and the speed with which the track is hurtling towards the windscreen, yet so rooted in the feedback and cues that we know from ‘lesser’ supercars. The noise is evil, but the overall experience is bordering on the divine.

JR: I would like to take the piss. I’ve never seen you so breathless and effusive, but that would seem churlish when I was having just as much fun. It seems to communicate and reward on so many levels – just sitting in it and donning the ear defenders, which do a mighty job of filtering out the harshest bits of noise, is an event. Mashing and then modulating the brakes is an endless game of trial and error, the steering moves in your hands like a true lightweight. It’s a car that likes smooth, calm inputs, which is so at odds with the fury going on all around you.

JB: I think that’s it. And forget all this pro versus slow. I might be a little further up the Valkyrie’s ultimate performance curve but there’s still so much more to come. And I reckon that’s another great part about this car. You don’t just hop in, wring its neck and ‘complete’ it. You can wring its neck but, in truth, there are always going to be levels. More speed to carry into the fast turns. Maybe you can finesse the slow corners a bit, nail the braking just a little bit better. It’s a challenge – not in the sense it requires taming, but because it has such a vast performance envelope. I guess if I’m being ultra picky I’d say the gearbox feels a tad slower than you might expect and the tendency for a bit of turn-in oversteer can feel a bit tricky through the fast chicanes. But, well, it’s just so bloody exciting, isn’t it? Like nothing else.

JR: Got to be honest, I thought the gearbox kept up fine. I didn’t expect to be able to push hard enough to trigger the ABS though, or feel the back end move around a bit and do so with confidence, not sheer terror, but I did. Get a bit of speed under the tyres and it’s actually playful. Come to terms with the UFO styling, longwinded startup procedure and mechanical thrash and I reckon you could actually use this more often than most billionaires will. Not a daily, that’s just silly, but a weekly perhaps?

JB: Yep. From cynic to believer. I love this thing. I guess that a car designed by Adrian Newey is pretty good at flying around a race track shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Can it possibly work on the road? I don’t know. But I really, really want to find out.

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Jack Rix: After 721 years in development, we have a Valkyrie at Speed Week. And when I say we have one, we’re not talking about a couple of mollycoddled demo laps with an instructor looking disapprovingly over our shoulder. Save for a couple of engineers keeping tabs on its vitals, briefing us on the start-up procedure and tucking it in for the night, they’ve literally lobbed us the keys to deploy it as we see fit on road and track. For five whole days.

May we remind you this is no ordinary car. Even calling it a car seems a bit of a stretch. It’s the brain biscuit of Adrian Newey who cares not about your comfort, or eardrums, or ability to parallel park or listen to your favourite podcast. His only goal with the Valkyrie was to build something with ludicrous, near-F1 track speed, and then to stick a numberplate on it.

And that’s the craziest bit of all for a car with a Cosworth 6.5-litre V12 engine that screams to over 11,000rpm, that also has an e-motor in the seven-speed sequential gearbox for a total of 1,139bhp. Weight? Just 1,270kg dry. Aero? Lots of it – 1,100kg at 137mph, which seems oddly specific. And now I’m wondering quite what we’ve let ourselves in for. Look how nuts it is! Can any normal human being handle it?

Words: Jack Rix & Jethro Bovingdon
Photography: John Wycherley & Mark Riccioni

Jethro Bovingdon: Jack, don’t doubt yourself! Yes, the sheer potential of the Valkyrie seems alien and intimidating. But the best racecars are usually pretty easy to drive – up to a point, at least. The Valkyrie is so single minded, its chassis and mechanical makeup so pure that it doesn’t have to overcome any inherent compromises or weaknesses. Think about it. Small, super stiff carbon tub, perfect suspension geometry, low centre of gravity and all that downforce might take a lot of time to truly master... but in the meantime it just means stability and confidence. You’ll be bouncing off the rev limiter in no time.

JR: Bouncing off the tyre wall, more like. Did I mention it costs £2.5m and I had to sign off my house as collateral on the insurance? OK, chin up... let’s do this. You’re right of course – I’ve driven hugely intimidating, downforce laden cars aplenty in my time and so long as you stay within your own limits all that grip, balance and predictability is your friend. Plus, it’s just two pedals, two paddles and an oddly shaped steering wheel – a bit like a very fast Audi TT. I guess we have a kind of pro versus slow situation here. If the Valkyrie works for us both, it should work for everyone.

JB: And if it doesn’t... well, at least we’ve driven a Valkyrie! This will be A Very Good Day. Just don’t crash. And if you do, make sure it’s such a big one that Aston Martin has to pretend to be more concerned for your health than its precious hypercar. I would suggest Turn 1 is ideal for this.

JR: What about my kids?

JB: “Daddy hasn’t been the same since that Valkyrie crash.” Sounds pretty cool to me.

With that, Jack elegantly lowers himself into the hypercar conceived by Adrian Newey and dragged into being by the Herculean efforts of Aston Martin. Life will never be quite the same again.

JR: Mother of God. The first time I floored it was something I’ll never forget. Yes, the throttle is pin sharp and the acceleration is frantic, but you get none of the V12 scream you experience from the outside – just a wall of noise and vibration and a rigid mounted V12 trying to burrow into your spine. It’s breathtaking, and the way it flows in the fast corners and rotates in the slower ones is just sensational. Of course, I’m braking too early and lifting when the downforce probably has me covered, but I’m taking chunks out of my time each lap and that says it all really. Very quickly you realise this is what it’s designed to do... dare I say it feels friendly? OK, your turn.

JB: [Once back in pitlane] It’s actually pretty hard to put into words, isn’t it? All the stuff I said to you – most of which I believed at the time – is true, but somehow that gorgeous balance, grip and poise melds with the brutal noise and monster performance to make something more than the sum of its parts. More than the sum of a V12 that revs to the moon combined with the huge downforce generated. It’s otherworldly in terms of capability and the speed with which the track is hurtling towards the windscreen, yet so rooted in the feedback and cues that we know from ‘lesser’ supercars. The noise is evil, but the overall experience is bordering on the divine.

JR: I would like to take the piss. I’ve never seen you so breathless and effusive, but that would seem churlish when I was having just as much fun. It seems to communicate and reward on so many levels – just sitting in it and donning the ear defenders, which do a mighty job of filtering out the harshest bits of noise, is an event. Mashing and then modulating the brakes is an endless game of trial and error, the steering moves in your hands like a true lightweight. It’s a car that likes smooth, calm inputs, which is so at odds with the fury going on all around you.

14 minutes 48 seconds

JB: I think that’s it. And forget all this pro versus slow. I might be a little further up the Valkyrie’s ultimate performance curve but there’s still so much more to come. And I reckon that’s another great part about this car. You don’t just hop in, wring its neck and ‘complete’ it. You can wring its neck but, in truth, there are always going to be levels. More speed to carry into the fast turns. Maybe you can finesse the slow corners a bit, nail the braking just a little bit better. It’s a challenge – not in the sense it requires taming, but because it has such a vast performance envelope. I guess if I’m being ultra picky I’d say the gearbox feels a tad slower than you might expect and the tendency for a bit of turn-in oversteer can feel a bit tricky through the fast chicanes. But, well, it’s just so bloody exciting, isn’t it? Like nothing else.

JR: Got to be honest, I thought the gearbox kept up fine. I didn’t expect to be able to push hard enough to trigger the ABS though, or feel the back end move around a bit and do so with confidence, not sheer terror, but I did. Get a bit of speed under the tyres and it’s actually playful. Come to terms with the UFO styling, longwinded startup procedure and mechanical thrash and I reckon you could actually use this more often than most billionaires will. Not a daily, that’s just silly, but a weekly perhaps?

JB: Yep. From cynic to believer. I love this thing. I guess that a car designed by Adrian Newey is pretty good at flying around a race track shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Can it possibly work on the road? I don’t know. But I really, really want to find out.

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At last, we have our hands on the Valkyrie. But is its performance only accessible for the pros... or can anyone enjoy it?