This year, the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar is competing in the World Endurance Championship (WEC). Having completed its first IMSA race earlier this season, the Valkyrie is back on track in Qatar this weekend.
The 2025 Qatar 1812 km is currently underway, and things are not going smoothly for the green team. Both of their cars qualified at the back of the field with the #007 machine in 16th. It’s understandable for a new team with a brand-new car given the level of competition in the hypercar class.
However, the team’s woes continued even in the race after the #009 car suffered a rather odd failure. One of the doors on the Valkyrie popped open at speed. The driver tried to shut it, but the gullwing design makes this difficult. Eventually, the struts holding the door failed, and it just flew off.
Now, this incident has highlighted a design flaw with the Valkyrie hypercar. Unlike other manufacturers, which use front-hinged doors that are forced shut with air flowing over them at high speed, the Valkyrie’s doors have hinges in the roof. This also makes it harder for the driver to shut it close in case the latch fails.
Source: FIA World Endurance Championship
First of all, you can’t say it’s a design flaw, the door was not closed properly by the pit crew, and the door wouldn’t have blew off if the driver slowed down. Lastly Valkyrie has never raced in IMSA yet.