Braselton, GA
The season came down to Road Atlanta, and for most of the ten hours, the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie looked like the fastest car on track. Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn had the Valkyrie running as high as third late in the race, set the fastest lap of the entire field at 1:11.897, and strung together 17 consecutive laps led in the closing stretch — on pace for what would have been a second podium of the year.
Then the penalties piled up. A warning for contact with the No. 60 Acura was followed by two separate drive-through penalties — one for contact with the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Cadillac, and a second, with barely ten minutes to go, after a Turn 1 incident with the No. 31 Cadillac. In a race that saw a record 16 full-course cautions, the Valkyrie's pace never wavered, but the penalties did the damage. The No. 23 crossed the line fifth, matching its best finish of the season.
It's a fitting, frustrating way to close out the year: the speed was unquestionably there from Sebring through Road Atlanta, even when the results didn't always show it. On to 2027.
