Valkyrie on Thursday led the timesheets in an official IMSA session for the first time as 2022 IMSA GTD champion Roman De Angelis (CAN) went fastest in night practice. This was followed by team-mate Ross Gunn (GBR) taking the hypercar’s best qualifying result to date with fifth place on Friday. De Angelis and Gunn, THOR’S regular IMSA season drivers, were joined at Petit Le Mans by Alex Riberas (SPA); part of Aston Martin THOR Team’s FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) line-up and a multiple race winner in IMSA’s GTD classes.

All three drove well, and with some clever strategic calls from the pit crew, raced Valkyrie #23 into a podium spot with two hours to go. Key here was a decision to make a final pitstop with 50 minutes left, rather than hypothetically staying out in case of a Full-Course Yellow period, which could have allowed the car’s energy reserves to be stretched without an additional stop. This meant that De Angelis ran at full attack to the end of the race. Despite dropping to seventh, 50 seconds behind the leader, he charged back into contention while gaining positions as the track remained ‘green’ and others made their final fuel stops. The Valkyrie slotted into second with less than 10 minutes remaining. De Angelis closed to within six seconds of the victory while securing the best result for Valkyrie in all competitions, completing an IMSA season in which the car finished every race and completed over 4300 miles of hard racing around eight North American motorsport venues.