In the second and final of IMSA’s two 100-minute street races on the 11-round 2026 schedule, the works Aston Martin THOR Team prepared-and-run British hypercar, and its drivers Roman De Angelis (CAN) and Ross Gunn (GBR) face one of their toughest challenges of the season on the narrow, unforgiving 1.7-mile Detroit Street Circuit.

The nine-corner lay-out, positioned in the same region of the Michigan city’s original Formula One® Grand Prix venue from the 1980s, is tight, twisty and consists of mainly 90° turns. These place a premium on stable braking over bumpy surfaces and strong traction out of corners; making it a tricky venue for all the competitors in IMSA’s top hypercar category which shares the event with the IMSA GTD Pro class.

Nevertheless, THOR goes into the weekend on the crest of a wave, having recorded Valkyrie’s best FIA World Endurance Championship [WEC] finish – fourth place at Spa-Francorchamp (BEL) – earlier in the month. That result followed an inspiring performance in the previous IMSA round at Laguna Seca, Ca., where Valkyrie finished a mere eight seconds behind the winner in a tightly contested race. Moreover, Valkyrie’s pace at the previous street circuit, Long Beach, where it ran competitively in fourth place before being struck by a rival, gives the team belief that a strong result is achievable.

“Bumpy street circuits don’t play to the natural strengths of our car, but at Long Beach we were able to extract a lot of performance from Valkyrie,” said Aston Martin THOR team principal Ian James. “As always in IMSA, if you have a car that you can fight with, it’s important to execute without error and be prepared to take advantage when opportunities arise. We have proven that as a team, with this car and these drivers, that we have a package that can do that. Sooner or later the cards will fall in our favour.”

The competition variant of Valkyrie – the pure racing expression of the world’s ultimate roadgoing hypercar – is developed from its production sibling by Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing [THOR] and blends a race-optimised carbon fibre chassis with a modified 6.5-litre V12 powerplant that revs to 11,000rpm and produces over 1000bhp in standard form, but adheres to a strict 500kw (680bhp) power limit as per the WEC’s hypercar rulebook and IMSA’s GTP regulations.

The solitary V12-powered car entered in the Detroit Grand Prix, Valkyrie is also the only entry derived from a road-going hypercar competing in either IMSA or WEC.

Ross Gunn, driver #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie: “When I think about it, Detroit is probably one of the hardest tracks to drive a hypercar around, just simply because it is such a short layout and so twisty. With these big cars, it sometimes feels a little unnatural to race around here. But it’s still great fun, and a challenge, which is what all drivers yearn for. We’ve been growing in competitiveness all year, in all conditions, and we were strong at the last street circuit [Long Beach] that we raced on, so I believe we can surprise a few people this weekend. We’ll certainly be trying to, that’s for sure.”

Roman De Angelis, driver #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie (IMSA): The Detroit Grand Prix is somewhat of a home race for me, having grown up just 30 minutes across the border, I’ve been attending it for as long as I can remember! For this reason, it’s always special to compete there in front of my friends and family. We made a lot of progress from last year, at Long Beach, which has some similar characteristics to Detroit, so I’m confident we can have a successful weekend.”

Adam Carter, Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport: “Valkyrie has proved so far this season, that when the circumstances prevail it has the pace and the drivability to exploit opportunities and achieve results. We saw that at Spa-Francorchamps in WEC, and at Laguna Seca and Long Beach in IMSA. Detroit is a different proposition to the aforementioned, being a twisty street track, but we continue to make strides forward in understanding and improving Valkyrie’s performance and we are confident it can fight for a strong result this weekend.”

How to follow

The Detroit Grand Prix will begin at 1610 EST (-5 Hours BST) on Saturday, 30 May 2026. It will be broadcast live globally on IMSA TV and on the IMSA YouTube channel and via selected broadcasters at a national level.