Aston Martin Formula One driver Fernando Alonso has officially taken delivery of his bespoke Valkyrie hypercar, but there’s contention over whether its debut on the streets of Monaco went as planned or not.
The hypercar has been labelled an “F1 car for the road”, with each of the 150 examples offering more than 860kW of power and hand-built by Aston Martin in the United Kingdom.
Mr Alonso, a two-time F1 World Champion in his second year as an Aston Martin driver, was involved in the design and build process of his very own Valkyrie in partnership with the brand’s Q by Aston Martin bespoke service.
But on the same day as the delivery announcement, a video was posted to Instagram by user formula_aerodynamics that claims the Valkyrie broke down “only one hour” after being delivered.
The video shows the British racing green Valkyrie with what appears to be an Aston Martin technician inside, before it’s loaded onto a flatbed truck and carried away.
But Mr Alonso since responded to the same video on X (formerly Twitter) with laughing emojis, writing “Ganando credibilidad” and using the hashtag #fuentesDistantes.
These translate from Spanish to ‘gaining credibility’ and #distantsources.
His response suggests there was nothing wrong with the car at all, as The Sports Rush reports it was instead being loaded onto the truck to be taken to his Monaco residence. The post to which Mr Alonso replied has since been deleted.
Regardless of how his first day with the car went, the Spaniard said it was “hard to put into words” how much he had “been looking forward” to receiving his brand-new car.
“To sit at the wheel of my own Valkyrie; one that I have worked on designing so closely with the team at Q by Aston Martin is certainly a day to remember,” Mr Alonso at the time of delivery.
The Valkyrie first broke cover as an Aston Martin-Red Bull concept in 2016, and went through several prototype iterations before arriving at its current production version in 2021.
Under the skin is a hybrid 6.5-litre V12 powertrain pumping out 861kW. It’s mated to a seven-speed single-clutch automated manual transmission with rear-wheel drive, and is claimed to be capable of pushing the Valkyrie from 0-100km/h in around 2.5 seconds.
Mr Alonso’s tweaks include a Satin Aston Martin Racing Green paint job with lime green accents, exposed carbon fibre, red and blue graphics to accentuate the Venturi Tunnels at the rear, and a unique “Caution Hot” decal on the back.
There’s more carbon fibre inside, along with black Alcantara seats featuring lime stitching and Mr Alonso’s embroidered logo on the headrest, and a red anodised throttle pedal etched with the number 14 – the Spanish driver’s racing number.
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