ASTON MARTIN’S BRIEF AND UNDISTINGUISHED F1 HISTORY
Aston Martin competed briefly in the early 1920s before the advent of modern F1. The works team then made a Grand Prix debut in Holland in 1959 with the DBR4/250. Despite a typically high standard of workmanship and finish, the front-engined car was out of date before it reached the start line at Zandvoort.
Apart from Jack Brabham running riot with the smaller and more nimble rear-engined Cooper-climax, the Aston Martin had been designed five years previously but had remained under dust sheets as the English firm concentrated on long-distance racing. Success in sportscars prompted the erroneous thought that F1 might also succumb to the light green car, with its heavy straight-six engine designed for endurance rather than out-and-out performance. Aston Martin entered five world championship Grands Prix (and started four), coming away with two distant sixth places in the hands of British driver Roy Salvadori before ending the embarrassment halfway through 1960.
after a fall in pro ts due to poor sales and high costs. Racing Point will become the of cial Aston Martin F1 team in 2021. The arrangement is for an initial 10 years and Aston Martin will have “an economic interest in the team”.
The Red Bull F1 team will become a casualty of the take-over by losing the title sponsorship provided by Aston Martin since 2018 following the beginning of their liaison two years before. Meanwhile, a separate partnership between Red Bull Technology and Aston Martin to produce the Valkyrie hypercar will continue “until the Aston Martin Valkyrie is delivered”, which suggests this will come to an end once the rst batch of 150 road-going cars is complete.
“The dif cult trading performance in 2019 resulted in severe pressure on liquidity which has left the company with no alternative but to seek substantial additional equity nancing,” said Penny Hughes, Aston Martin Lagonda chairwoman. “Without this, the balance sheet is not robust enough to support the operations of the group. Notwithstanding recent weak trading, the strength of the Aston Martin brand and our expanding portfolio of cars has allowed us to attract a strong new partner in Mr Stroll to support the turnaround of the business.”
Stroll’s consortium includes Silas Chou, his long-term business partner since the days of accumulating vast wealth through shrewd take-overs and investments in the fashion industry. Stroll will join the Aston Martin board as the new executive chairman.
“I am very pleased that I – and my partners in the consortium – have reached agreement with the board and major shareholders to make this signi cant long-term investment,” said Stroll. “Aston Martin Lagonda makes some of the world's most iconic luxury cars, designed and built by very talented people. Our investment underpins the company's nancial security and ensures it will be operating from a position of nancial strength.
“On completion of the £500 million of fundraising [±R9,8 billion],” continued Stroll, “I look forward to working with the board and management team in Aston Martin Lagonda to review and improve
each aspect of the company’s operations and marketing; to continue to invest in the development of new models and technologies, and to start to rebalance production to prioritise demand over supply.
“I and my partners rmly believe Aston Martin is one of the great global luxury-car brands. I believe this combination of capital and my experience of both the motor industry and building highly successful global brands will mean that, over time, we ful l Aston Martin Lagonda's potential.
“The company hopes to bounce back with the new DBX SUV but needed the money to push ahead with the expansion required. The
rm says that it expects things to improve rapidly, helped by the new James Bond movie which comes out in a couple of months, which will again feature Aston Martin cars.”
This is but another chapter in a chequered history that has more long-term signi cance than winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the World Sportscar Championship in 1959. One example is the edgy existence of the DB7 despite this graceful car having gained iconic status. According to
the motor industry commentator Andrew Frankel, the gradual loss of its prized engineering capacity led Aston Martin to outsource the DB7 to Tom Walkinshaw’s TWR enterprise. The subsequent morphing of the Jaguar XJS into the Aston Martin DB7 – with few outside the auto industry either knowing or caring about this – was, in the opinion of Frankel “one of the greatest achievements to take place in that industry over the 30-something years I’ve been commenting upon it”. Frankel says that if the DB7 had failed, Aston’s new owners, the Ford Motor Company, would have brought one of Britain’s most distinguished marques to a hasty end as the US giant coped with serious problems of its own.
Aston Martin seems to have survived once more against the odds, the future of its highly regarded DBX SUV reasonably secure, along with that of the Racing Point F1 team. Stroll had also saved the day in late 2018 when Force India was pushed into administration
after struggling with debts and problems for its owner, the Indian business tycoon, Vijay Mallya.
Stroll immediately gave the Silverstone-based team investment and development power that had been sadly lacking in previous years – not that you would have known it as this tight and efficient entry punched well above its weight and finished best of the rest behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The uncertainty in 2018, however, impacted on the early stages of development with the 2019 car, the renamed Racing Point slipping to seventh in the standings. Without knowing what resources might be available – indeed, whether or not they had a future as a team – the technical department could not commit to the necessary investment to cope with the F1 regulation changes last year. Being able to battle as well as they did in the tense midfield struggle was actually the result of some slick team work and clever strategy, coupled with Sergio Pérez making the most of it when given a chance. In the meantime, Stroll competed an agreement to use the Mercedes wind tunnel in Brackley (England) and gave the green light to a major extension, due to come on stream at the team’s factory at Silverstone in 2021.
The financial security has allowed technical director Andrew Green (with the team since it began as Jordan Grand Prix in 1991) to do whatever is necessary for 2020.
“The 2020 car has no carry-over pieces from last year,” says Green. “We designed the car from scratch, starting from almost a blank sheet of paper, which is exciting because the team hasn’t been in a position to do this in a very long time.
“We’ve applied everything that we’ve learnt over the past seasons, combining this with what we’ve seen adopted by some of our competitors, and we’ve given it our best shot at optimising the final season of these present regulations. In recent seasons, we have had two main weaknesses: our car has had an Achilles heel as far as balance is concerned and we have also struggled on high-downforce circuits. For 2020, I believe we have addressed these two factors. Both
Checo [Sergio Perez] and Lance [Stroll] have already noticed a change, so we’re hopeful that this performance will carry over in the races. The annoying thing is that we’ll only get one season with this car before the regulations change again for 2021.”
Next year’s revisions are far-reaching, but Racing Point will be more than ready for a shift that also embraces the return of the Aston Martin name. In the short term, little will change as the chassis continues to be produced at Silverstone, with engines supplied by technical partner Mercedes.
In the long term, however, Stroll’s deal brings an important manufacturer back to the sport with a commitment as far as 2030 and the unconfirmed possibility of racing Aston Martin’s small-capacity V6 turbo, currently being developed for the Valhalla, the successor to the Valkyrie. Exciting prospects as Aston Martin survives … yet again.