What's it like to drive the 1,139bhp Aston Martin Valkyrie on the road?

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The Aston Martin Valkyrie puts me to sleep at 30mph surrounded by Manama’s nighttime bustle and thrust. Yes, it’s been a long day driving probably the planet’s most exciting hypercar, but that’s not it. Instead – and prepare for a key change here – I want you to imagine that you’re an unborn child. There you are, tightly packaged yet perfectly supported. Warm. Safe. Soothed by lub-dub noises, the hum and vibration of unknown everyday life.

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Photography: Mark Fagelson

Welcome to the Valkyrie. From the neck down every bit of me is supported by various bits of trim and floor, lulling zizzes and vibrations run through the carbon tub, the engine’s low-rev drone is a constant, dominant white noise. I didn’t expect to liken travelling in the Valkyrie to being in a womb, but that’s the effect it has on me and, yeah, it sends me drifting towards the land of Nod. Of all the things I expected to learn about the Valkyrie, its soporific nature was not one of them.

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Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro: Harris drives the track-only racer

I slap myself round the cheek, hard. The effect is diminished because the first thing my fingers come into contact with is a set of ear defenders. That could be part of the problem. I adjust my aim and go again, harder.

Some 12 hours ago I watched this car being unboxed in a pit garage and was handed a small lozenge-like key. It deserved more ceremony, seeing as we’ve been waiting for this car since 2016. A seven-year gestation, riven with complications all boiled down to a key in my palm, and a car in front of me.

Given the timescales a historical recap is probably necessary. Originally a collaboration between Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin, the low drag, high downforce concept was the brainchild of famed F1 designer Adrian Newey. That relationship dissolved when Aston formed its own F1 team, but the basics were already there. A tiny teardrop carbon passenger cell with an all-new 6.5-litre naturally aspirated 65º V12 hard mounted to it and out back a clever gearbox integrating an electric motor. That draws power from a 1.68kWh battery pack supplied by Rimac. The powertrain is a stressed member, saving weight and allowing Aston to claim a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.

That’s slipped. The V12 and e-motor still deliver a combined 1,139bhp, but weight has risen in the face of regulation, legislation and rumoured cost-cutting. As it sits here, with brimmed tanks it’s probably around 1,350kg. But still, one thousand, one hundred and thirty nine break horsepower. I have a pinch myself moment, when I think back to driving my first car, and try to imagine what 17-year-old me would make of this situation, this car developing 20 times the power of a beige diesel Peugeot 205.

The Valkyrie is mine for the whole day, to go and drive around Bahrain. It’s not the first place I’d have chosen for an excursion, but people’s responses to a car like this are the same the world over and summed up in three letters: WTF? My mantra as I absorb the bodywork, the gaping openings and empty spaces is HITRL – how is this road legal?

But it’s got numberplates and if you remove the front one, you’ll find the first aid kit. Have a shunt and it will be ready distributed for your needs. A fingertip-size button releases the lightweight door. It flits up and once you’ve wriggled over and down, you reach up and realise it slams with a lovely ‘krump’ noise. It also has soft close. Hell, it’s tight in here, though. Racecar tight. You don’t notice, but each minimalist carbon wafer seat is angled inwards at 2º. The upwards leg incline feels natural almost immediately. The steering wheel doesn’t lift high enough, an array of screens provide your rear view. A central divider prevents the passenger operating the pedals, and further back contains the parking brake switch, hazards and a USB port. But nowhere, not even a pouch, to put your phone. The best I can do is drop that into the slot where the crotch harness emerges from on the passenger seat. Want more storage? You’ll have to ditch the warning triangle and inflation kit under the nose.

There’s real complexity here. The engine takes a fair few seconds to fire, the e-motor spinning the V12 before it catches, settling into an even but raucous and penetrating idle. There are vibrations. Refinement is absent. But it operates easily. The seven-speed gearbox is a single clutch sequential by Ricardo – getting this much power and 681lb ft of torque rolling would stress the clutch hugely. So it pulls away electrically, then bleeds the clutch in automatically around 10mph. That never misses a beat, happily tolerates traffic all day.

Next surprise comes as we leave the circuit. Speed bumps. The Valkyrie has nose lift and clearance, but the suspension feels loose, soft as it drops over them. The whole aero and suspension package is designed to work together, hydraulically linked and actuated to support the car at 10mph as well as 200mph with a tonne or more of downforce on it. The sense of connection diminished because it’s not behaving as I expect, the usual spring/damper activation is a nudge off normal, but I’ll tell you this: the ride isn’t harsh.

I’m out among the oil fields now, getting more speed and flow into the Valkyrie. The low speed ride hits hard, but it smooths as speeds rise. It’s a small car on the road, forward visibility is good, I can see over the humps of the front wheels, but it’s difficult to focus on individual aspects of the Valkyrie when volume dominates everything. That mighty Cosworth engine may be well-mannered and approachable, but inside it’s deafening. The standard ear protection does a good filtering job, but you can’t escape the mechanical thrash. We have radios to communicate but unless it’s pressed to my head I can’t hear it, mics struggle as on no other car we’ve ever filmed.

It’s not for that reason I point blank refuse to turn into the first drive-through we see. Good gag, but the kerbs are half a yard high. I end up outside a donut joint. I have to shut down the engine to be heard. I order a coffee, which is daft as there’s nowhere to put it.

Back on the road I’m getting more of a feel for this alien machine. The gearchanges are slow and considered, the steering has weight and accuracy but not a terrific amount of natural feel. Much like most racecars. If I’m honest, the Valk’s dynamic development doesn’t feel quite finished.

I’m heading to the coast, surrounded by waving arms and toots. So I cut the shackles and blast it. Holy hell. The beast awakens, the noise instantly changes pitch and tone and the Valkyrie shrieks. The sound is Jurassic. Or Nineties Le Mans. You choose. Weightless acceleration, and absolutely no need to deploy the ERS button for a 140bhp e-boost. I only see 8,500rpm. Only.

The full experience on circuit the next day is mind-altering. Not just for the noise, but the lack of downforce and drag that means high speed acceleration is utterly relentless. It accelerates like a paper dart with afterburners. Here’s the ultimate contrast though – I drive the Valkyrie onto a beach. It’s sunset, not the rosy orb we were hoping for, but a chance to soak in this glorious looking thing. What a piece of sculpture, how skilfully the yin and yang of design and engineering have been blended. The body’s top surface is a flip point, underneath is insect, above is beauty.

Manama’s neon does nothing to diminish this. Street lamps reflect in the front wings, each beam peeling over the curve like a shooting star. I don’t know where I’m going, so our local fixer jumps in the car with me. He’s wearing a puffer jacket because for him, 20ºC ambient is freezing. It’s like sharing the car with expanding foam. It’s suffocating, I have to fight for space to operate the car.

I once roadtripped a McLaren Senna. That was a doddle compared with the Aston Valkyrie. Yes, it has aircon and that works well. And if you travel solo, you’ll have space for kit. I have a dabble in the menus and find the stereo controls. That makes me laugh out loud. Aston did consider fitting a hi-fi, but backtracked. Instead you can stream tunes through the headset, while imagining you’re a WRC driver on a road section. But even so I just can’t see owners tolerating this noise and sensory bombardment for long periods. Not without a support car. It’s draining. I haven’t been anywhere near the limits of it all day, and it’s still taken real mental processing to just operate. It’s not just the volume – it’s the value, the foreign land, the attention, the suspension that does me in, gets me near nodding off. Not entirely down to the car, then. And not repeated during next day’s adrenaline fest.

We stop right in the centre of the city. A nightlife hub on a weekend evening. The place throbs. It’s the kind of place you might just spot one in the wild. Daft, I know, but it stops people in their tracks in a way the massed ranks of McLarens and Lamborghinis lining the streets just don’t. Pedigree and exoticism combined. Aston has done it, got an F1 designer’s fever dream into production, breathed life into it. But at some cost.

Keyword: What's it like to drive the 1,139bhp Aston Martin Valkyrie on the road?