Aston Martin is awaiting the shape and scope of the revised regulations for the planned new for 2020/21 ‘Hypercar’ regulations before making a final determination on whether to commit to the top class of FIA/ACO sportscar racing.

David King, President of Aston Martin Racing made clear to a gathering of media at Sebring today that whilst Aston Martin remained “very interested indeed” in the new look top class, and was certainly in support of the recent moves to add race versions of roadgoing hypercars to the scope of the new ruleset, a final decision and commitment would be impossible without a set of draft regulations.

“We are fully engaged in the discussion, we are very interested in the potential,” he said. “But we obviously can’t commit to a formula that we don’t yet have a clear definition for.”

Whilst unwilling to confirm that Aston Martin has been in the vanguard of pressure applied to the rule makers for the addition of the roadgoing cars in the draft regulations, King was clear that there was, as yet, no firm programme in place:

“We are in support of the changes to the proposals, and we are aware that others are interested too, but now it is down to the rule makers to decide how that would work alongside their original proposals, how performance can be balanced and exactly what will, and won’t be included and allowed.”

After the Geneva Motor Show, which saw Aston Martin reveal a mould-breaking vision of their high-performance future with a range of four mid-engined hypercar/supercars, King did agree that the timing of the regulation change potentially fitted very well with Aston Martin’s product plans.

“Absolutely. We were very proud to show the four cars (Valkyrie, Valkyrie AMR Pro, AM-RB 003 and Vanquish Vision Concept), it is a new direction and that is clearly a major factor behind our interest. Again though we really cannot make decisions without fully understanding what is, and isn’t in the regulations.”

King also repeated the point that whilst the clock towards the 2020/ 21 season was ticking ever more loudly, a decision from Aston Martin would focus not just whether the marque would step up, but with what, and when!

“The timeframes are challenging, and only get more so as time goes on, if we decide to do it there are really two options, be early adopters and frame the reference points, or wait and see where the performance emerges from others.”

More from David King later on DSC…