Opinion: you can thank videogames for the Aston Martin Valkyrie's run at Le Mans

As you read this, I will have just about managed to peel myself from the arse-shaped divot in my sofa having spent an entire weekend watching the Le Mans 24-Hour Race. Whether I’m at the track or hogging the television at home, Le Mans is an annual highlight. For someone with an insatiable appetite for motorsport, getting more than half an F1 season’s worth of racing condensed into one weekend is like that time as a kid when I drank an entire bottle of Ribena cordial neat. They practically had to scrape me off the ceiling.

This year’s Le Mans is particularly exciting because, for the first time, it features the racing version of the Aston Martin Valkyrie, undeniably one of the most desirable road cars ever. Better yet, the race version retains the road car’s engine and has become an instant fan favourite for its trouser-tautening 6.5 litre V12 howl. Having heard it in person, it is, without a doubt, the best-sounding current racing car and certainly knocks F1’s V6 hybrid into a cocked crash helmet.

But the Valkyrie might never have run at Le Mans if it wasn’t for video games. This project is backed by Aston Martin, but it’s operated by a team called The Heart of Racing. And The Heart of Racing was co-founded by a billionaire called Gabe Newell, the man behind both the Half-Life video games and the dominant PC game storefront, Steam. If you’ve ever bought a PC game, you’ve probably contributed, in some small way, to bringing V12s back to Le Mans for the first time since... well, since an Aston in 2011.

This isn’t a new thing either; The Heart of Racing was founded as a customer GT racing team in 2014, and, with Newell’s company based in Seattle, he was inspired by a charitable mission to raise money for Seattle Children’s Cardiology Research Fund. But running the Valkyrie to compete for an overall Le Mans victory? I asked co-founder, team principal and current GT racing driver Ian James – clearly a man who wears more hats than Jay Kay from Jamiroquai – exactly how that happened. “Initially it came from Gabe,” James told me.

“When the road car was introduced, he was just like: ‘it’d be criminal if this thing doesn’t go racing’. Obviously Aston had bounced the idea around a couple of times but, the last three years, it’s something that we initiated and Aston came on board with sharing the same dream. We get so many positive vibes from the fans and people thanking us profusely for making this thing a reality and going racing. It’s a car for the people in terms of its looks and its sound and we couldn’t be happier.”

While it would be a huge ask to win Le Mans at the first time of asking, with a billionaire car enthusiast writing the cheques, I’m confident the Valkyrie will stick around until it does. I’d better buy a few more PC games though, just in case...