As the marque’s first series production mid-engine supercar, there’s a lot of expectations on the Aston Martin Valhalla and the carmarker is leveraging its Formula 1 tech to speed up development.

The technical crossover between Aston Martin and its Formula 1 team is facilitated by the consulting arm of the team, Aston Martin Performance Technologies (AMPT). AMPT is directly assisting Aston Martin's performance engineering team in three key areas of development - dynamics, aerodynamics and materials.

The Valhalla is a truly driver-focused mid-engine supercar and its design relies heavily on simulation tools and the methods used to ensure that every moment spent in the simulator brings progress has been put in place for Valhalla. In fact, 90 percent of the dynamic characteristics and vehicle set-up has been completed in the simulator, with the final development phase completed in the real world, on the road and track. Furthermore, the F1 drivers themselves have been lending input to the calibration of the Valhalla.

The cockpit ergonomics has also benefited by taking direct cues from F1, in that the driving position has been optimised with support from AMPT. The driver's heels are raised by a false floor, which also contains electronic modules, and the unique carbon fibre bucket seat can be reclined to a greater angle to achieve a seating position more closely aligned to the AMR23 race car, whilst still offering road car comfort. This aids in keeping a low roofline as well.

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A quick look at the underbody of the AMR23 and the underbody of Valhalla, where most of its downforce is generated, illustrates how much F1 technology has gone into it.

All elements of the body are used to generate downforce and minimise drag. However, as the Valhalla is not restricted by F1 regulations, it can benefit from fully active aerodynamic systems at both the front and rear that generate over 600 kg of downforce at 240 kph.

Like the F1 car, the Valhalla features-multi element wings front and rear, though the front wing is largely hidden from view. The front wing can lie flat in a DRS position to reduce drag or can be angled up to generate huge downforce directly ahead of the front wheels. Behind the front splitter the under-floor surface is concave, creating a low-pressure area that generates downforce. Again, this feature can be controlled as part of the full vehicle active control algorithms on the car.

In track mode the wing is raised high into the airflow to maximise its effectiveness. The car then actively manages the angle of attack of the wing to continually balance between maximum downforce and DRS, to maximise performance.

Inspired by F1 vortex generators and aero features, small slotted louvers on the sill, just ahead of the rear wheel, act as mini diffusers to pull airflow out and upwards from under the car, increasing downforce. A roof-mounted snorkel feeds both the engine intake but also serves to feed cooling ducts for turbo intercoolers and to cool the engine's Hot-V turbo configuration.

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AMPT and the AMF1 team have been building cars from carbon fibre for many years so there is very little they don't understand about materials The AMPT carbon technologies team works on developing ideas that evolved in F1 and applying the same approach to Valhalla. This has been of great benefit when it comes to areas such as the simulation of stiffness and crash worthiness testing where great gains can be made by identifying any vulnerabilities.

A complex and exquisite blend of carbon fibre materials, Valhalla's carbon structure has been created using a novel and proprietary technology developed for Aston Martin. The upper and lower sections of the structure are moulded from carbon fibre using a combination of Resin-Transfer-Moulding process (RTM) and F1 derived autoclave technology. The result is a singular, immensely stiff, strong and light passenger cell which delivers best-in-class dynamic structural attributes.

The Valhalla's bespoke twin-turbo flat-plane V8 engine, which is the most advanced, responsive and highest-performing V8 engine ever fitted to an Aston Martin, is mated with three e-motors, creates a 1,012 PS hybrid all-wheel drive hybrid monster for the streets.

Twin electric motors on the front axle allows the engineers full independent control of the torque applied at the each of the front wheels, or torque vectoring. Torque vectoring enables a more positive steering response at turn-in, stronger grip through the corner and improved traction on corner exit. Enhancing the driving experience and performance through all phases of the corner. The front e-motors also provide the reverse function, enabling a weight saving on the rear transmission. A third e-motor is integrated into the transmission, providing additional power to the rear wheels as well as acting as the starter/generator for the ICE engine.

Expect the first running prototype to hot the road later this year before the Valhalla enters production in 2024.