Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso has officially taken delivery of his custom-built Valkyrie hypercar, but there is debate over whether his debut on the streets of Monaco went to plan or not.
The hypercar is billed as an ‘F1 road car’, with each of the 150 units delivering over 860kW of power and hand-built by Aston Martin in the UK.
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 own Valkyrie in collaboration with the brand’s bespoke Q by Aston Martin service.
But on the same day as the delivery announcement, a video was posted to Instagram by the user formula_aerodynamics which claims the Valkyrie broke “just one hour” after delivery.
The video shows the British racing green Valkyrie with what appears to be an Aston Martin technician inside, before being loaded onto a flatbed trailer and whisked away.
But Mr. Alonso since then 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 ‘gain credibility’ and #distantsources.
His reaction shows that there was nothing wrong with the car The sports storm reports that it was instead loaded onto the truck to be taken to his residence in Monaco. The message to which Mr Alonso responded has now been deleted.
However his first day with the car went, the Spaniard said it was “hard to put into words” how much he was “looking forward” to receiving his brand new car.
“To sit behind the wheel of my own Valkyrie; one that I have worked so closely on with the team at Q by Aston Martin is certainly a day to remember,” said Mr Alonso upon delivery.
The Valkyrie first broke through in 2016 as an Aston Martin-Red Bull concept and went through several prototype iterations before arriving at the current production version in 2021.
Under the skin lies a hybrid 6.5-liter V12 powertrain with an output of 861 kW. It’s mated to a seven-speed single-clutch automated manual transmission and rear-wheel drive, and could push the Valkyrie from 0-62mph in around 2.5 seconds.
Mr. Alonso’s customizations include a satin Aston Martin Racing Green paint job with lime green accents, exposed carbon fiber, red and blue graphics to accent the rear Venturi tunnels, and a unique “Caution Hot” decal on the rear.
There’s more carbon fibre, along with black Alcantara seats with lime stitching and Mr Alonso’s embroidered logo on the headrest, and a red anodised accelerator pedal etched with the number 14 – the Spanish driver’s racing number.
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