Next weekend (January 30th and 31st) will take place the 54th edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, opening round of the 2016 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The race holds special interest since it will serve as the Ford GT's first foray into competition, more than seven months after the official announcement - the day before the 83rd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans - of the marque's return.

WTSCC

The Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-LMH development programme has shifted up a gear in recent weeks. Next season, the British hypercar will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship – including the 24 Hours of Le Mans (10-15 June 2025) – and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the colours of Heart Of Racing.

With the 63rd Rolex 24 at Daytona just around the corner (25-26 January 2025), the Valkyrie AMR-LMH has taken part in three days of testing. Heart Of Racing used the tests to work on chassis settings and adaptation to the tyres.

Drivers Alex Riberas, Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis could also explore the performance capabilities of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH under the Florida racetrack&rsquo;s floodlights during a two-hour night session. These night sessions are essential to check visibility and tyre management in cooler temperatures.

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<h2>Tyre tests in Bahrain</h2>

Before this key phase, the Valkyrie was involved in tests organised by tyre manufacturer Michelin at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir to assess the models that hypercars will use in next season&rsquo;s FIA WEC. Heart Of Racing used the opportunity to examine the new tyres&rsquo; behaviour under extreme conditions with high temperatures and an abrasive track.

Development of the Valkyrie had begun earlier in the year on the Road Atlanta circuit following Petit Le Mans. This highly technical road course offered an ideal test bed to trial the first modifications of the hypercar. The data collected during these outings provided a crucial foundation for the subsequent tests.

With such a rigorous development programme, Aston Martin and Heart Of Racing are giving themselves every chance of making a successful start to their hypercar campaign. Further tests are lined up over the coming weeks in preparation for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH&rsquo;s race d&eacute;but in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

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Aston Martin steps up development work on Valkyrie AMR-LMH

2024 was pivotal for the Iron Lynx team and Lamborghini SC63 in the FIA WEC and 24 Hours of Le Mans Hypercar category. The season delivered invaluable lessons and difficult challenges as well as encouraging indications for the future.

Edurance racing fans awaited the arrival this year of the&nbsp;Lamborghini SC63, the Italian marque&#39;s first Hypercar, with heightened&nbsp;anticipation. The Verde Mantis car wowed the crowd at the&nbsp;24 Hours of Le&nbsp;Mans, with both&nbsp;SC63s making&nbsp;it to the chequered flag, in&nbsp;10th and&nbsp;13th&nbsp;places overall.&nbsp;The&nbsp;Lamborghini Iron Lynx team proved its ability to hold its own in a&nbsp;highly competitive&nbsp;Hypercar category.

<h2>A Learning Curve Season Against Formidable Competition</h2>

Lamborghini&#39;s desire to measure up to endurance racing titans like&nbsp;Toyota, Ferrari and&nbsp;Porsche exposed&nbsp;challenges associated with a rookie season in the FIA WEC. Ranked&nbsp;eighth in the FIA Endurance Hypercar Manufacturers&nbsp;Championship, the Italian carmaker earned points at the&nbsp;Qatar 1812 km, the&nbsp;6 Hours of Imola and the&nbsp;24 Hours of Le Mans. Daniil Kvyat, #63 SC63 driver: It&rsquo;s been a challenging year, of course the results were not what we want, but knowing this was our first year in the championship there were some encouraging performances, and we were in the mix several times, fighting with a lot more experienced rival. Of course, there are a lot of areas to improve, we know this, and hopefully we will be able to bring the updates that we really need to make our package more competitive. I am proud of the efforts of the boys and girls in the team, the dedication of the team has been amazing.

Teammate&nbsp;Edoardo Mortara: This year we have been learning a lot, we knew it would be a tough challenge against some really tough competitors, it was not going to be easy. We&rsquo;ve improved, but hopefully we will back with a more competitive package, this is the goal of the entire team. We&rsquo;ve shown some performance but it&rsquo;s now up to us to extract the maximum performance.&nbsp;

<h2>Turning Consistency into Victories</h2>

The shortcomings of the SC63&#39;s&nbsp;performance level undermined its efforts to keep&nbsp;up with&nbsp;extremely seasoned opponents. While the chassis and hybrid powertrain seem&nbsp;solid, the team will need to focus on optimising race strategies as well as&nbsp;the car&#39;s&nbsp;aerodynamic package and&nbsp;tyre management. The drivers&nbsp;demonstrated real commitment, reflecting the dedicated work executed by the outfit&#39;s&nbsp;engineers and mechanics.

Lamborghini will need to prove itself more&nbsp;competitive to become a podium contender in 2025. The SC63 has proven it can reach the finish line at even&nbsp;the most grueling races, but now the goal is to convert&nbsp;that&nbsp;reliability into wins.&nbsp;

A tricky but promising start for Lamborghini Iron Lynx's SC63

In the wake of a 2024 season punctuated by progress and even a late podium finish, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies is heading into 2025 with determination. The Peugeot 9X8 has been fine-tuned across this year's races and is seeking to vie for top spots with a measure of consistency. Fortified with a positive outlook, the engineers and drivers hope to give the best teams a run for their money at the 93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans on 11-15 June.

Last winter,&nbsp;Team Peugeot TotalEnergies executed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.24h-lemans.com/en/news/team-peugeot-totalenergies-unveils-the-peugeot-9x8-2024-58439" target="_blank">an ambitious overhaul of the&nbsp;Peugeot 9X8</a>&nbsp;with one goal in mind: to reach the&nbsp;top spots in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and mainly&nbsp;to win the&nbsp;24 Hours of Le Mans. The technical and engineering crews quickly galvinised&nbsp;their&nbsp;efforts and&nbsp;tweaked the&nbsp;9X8 to hold its own against the championship&#39;s major contenders.

The first rounds of the 2024 season proved it was easier said than done. Despite noticeable improvement, the&nbsp;Peugeot 9X8 faced off against fierce competition, namely the&nbsp;Toyota GR010 Hybrid, Ferrari 499P and&nbsp;Porsche 963, three&nbsp;Hypercars that have certainly raised the performance bar.

At the&nbsp;FIA WEC season highlight, the 24 Hours of Le&nbsp;Mans, the imbalance in respective&nbsp;performance levels was particularly obvious: the two&nbsp;Peugeot 9X8s finished&nbsp;11th and&nbsp;12th overall, trailing the winning Ferrari by two full laps.&nbsp;The&nbsp;result reflected&nbsp;the challenges the team faced against competitors with&nbsp;complete control of their cars and strategies.

<h2>A Promising Season End</h2>

Yet,&nbsp;Team Peugeot TotalEnergies has demonstrated true resilience. The second half of the season saw real progress and&nbsp;constantly improving performances. At the&nbsp;6 Hours of Fuji, the&nbsp;9X8 achieved an impressive&nbsp;fourth place overall finish with the team&#39;s blood, sweat and tears&nbsp;finally bearing fruit. The rise carried through to the last race, the&nbsp;Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain, where&nbsp;Team Peugeot TotalEnergies clinched third&nbsp;place.

Jean-Marc Finot, Stellantis Motorsport Senior VP: The season began under challenging conditions with a car that took time to find its rhythm, but the team never gave up, and we are pleased to end the season with a positive result that marks continuous progress. However, this podium should only be a step toward more consistent results in the top positions.

Though the Peugeot 9X8 hasn&#39;t yet reached the top tier in the FIA WEC hierarchy, the&nbsp;2024 season&nbsp;helped lay a solid foundation for the future.&nbsp;Team Peugeot TotalEnergies is looking to 2025 to parlay progress into consistent performances and enjoy a major payoff at the&nbsp;24 Hours of Le&nbsp;Mans with a much more competitive car.

The 9X8's improvement compels Team Peugeot TotalEnergies to aim high in 2025

In Brussels, at the exhibition center, from November 18 to 22, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and MissionH24, a program in collaboration with H24Project, are participating in this annual benchmark event ''European Hydrogen Week'', which has become a meeting place essential for European and international players.

Organized by Hydrogen Europe, Hydrogen Europe Research, the European Commission and Clean Hydrogen Partnership, European Hydrogen Week is celebrating its fifth edition in 2024. It is clear that both the format and the participants have multiplied and diversified in parallel with the deployment of hydrogen, a crucial energy vector for the energy transition and for industrial decarbonization.

During these five days,&nbsp;from November 18 to 22, hydrogen players are gathered to present, exchange, debate, build.... Industrialists, companies, institutions, elected officials, regions, territories, among other participants, are among the speakers, exhibitors, and visitors to the various sites. We will note the presence of India and Japan, two countries involved in the decarbonization of mobility and industry.

Hall 7 and Hall 11 of the Parc des Expos in Brussels will host the European Hydrogen Week.&nbsp;The ACO and MissionH24 will host a stand in Hall 7, area M20. The H24EVO showcar will allow visitors to see the developments in hydrogen in competition, the solutions chosen by partners to design a prototype dedicated to pure performance in Endurance.

Motor racing and Endurance once again demonstrate the formidable research laboratory that is racing, particularly the 24 Hours of Le Mans. By 2028, a category dedicated to hydrogen prototypes should be included in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship.

The ACO and MissionH24 at the European Hydrogen Week

Rolex 24 at Daytona 2016

For the occasion, excellent line-ups with drivers honed in endurance racing have been formed. Joey Hand and Dirk M&uuml;ller will share the No. 66 Ford GT and will be joined by S&eacute;bastien Bourdais in Florida. Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe will drive the No. 67 along with Stefan M&uuml;cke who will race the same model in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) the rest of the year. 
	 
	The two Ford GTs were entered by Ford Chip Ganassi Racing for the year in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and two others will do the same in the WEC for Olivier Pla, Stefan M&uuml;cke, Marino Franchitti and Andy Priaulx. 
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	<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vwblEUWTqpA?feature=oembed" width="480"></iframe>

	David Bristol / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO

	Video: YouTube &ndash; Ford Performance 
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24H LE MANS

IMSA - The Ford GT finally ready for its debut in competition (video)

Related News

Aston Martin steps up development work on Valkyrie AMR-LMH

A tricky but promising start for Lamborghini Iron Lynx's SC63

The 9X8's improvement compels Team Peugeot TotalEnergies to aim high in 2025

The ACO and MissionH24 at the European Hydrogen Week

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