Lifting The Covers On Aston Martin In F1

There are far more questions than answers as Aston Martin returns to Formula One.

For a start, was Sebastian Vettel wearing a hat to cover his baldness during the unveiling of the AMR21?

And, most importantly, can the team that began as Jordan and morphed down through Midland and Spyker and Force India to Racing Point, actually win races as the newly-named Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team?

“We’ve got some achievable but aggressive aspirations for 2021. We’d like to continue on the same trajectory where we left off the 2020 season,” said Otmar Szafnauer, the team principal.

The one-time Ford executive is a canny bloke who knows the F1 world and what is achievable. Just surviving at the team after its sale to Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, then navigating the Aston arrival and the decision to keep Lance (son of) Stroll while dropping Sergio Perez, proves his ability.

“Our objective is to be the third-fastest car on the grid. And to use that to become more consistent and score more points, and beat the likes of McLaren and Renault and Ferrari again,” he said.

“With Aston Martin, and everything they bring to the team, with renewed finances as well, it allows us to set the targets for the future. That’s massive.”

But Aston is making a giant splash and anyone who remembers the days when Jaguar arrived in F1, with a Stroll-beating budget from Ford Motor Company and a similar British Racing Green colour scheme, has to be wondering.

Is it the right move for a company which has narrowly-avoided bankruptcy in the recent past, and desperately needs its first SUV – the gorgeous DBX – to do what the Cayenne did for Porsche, saving it from oblivion?

The answers will come this year but, as Aston prepares for its roll-out and the stopwatch test against the black beauties from Mercedes-AMG – which also supplies its power-train package – one thing is clear from the corporate side.

“A fast car is a beautiful car. The stopwatch is all that counts,” Marek Reichman, the chief creative officer at Aston Martin, told Race News.

And what about F1, after more than 60 years away from grand prix racing?

“It’s the pinnacle of motorsport. It’s where we deserve to be,” Reichman said.

“We are all very proud to be back in the sport. And we’re there because we believe it is the right place for us to be.”

There is no promise to topple Mercedes-AMG or Red Bull Racing, but all the promises for the (re)newed team are good for Formula One at a time when it is fighting for relevance and an audience in a post-Covid world.

Aston Martin will draw from technology in the F1 team, after partnering with Red Bull Racing on its Valkyrie hypercar, from its wind tunnel and the Mercedes-AMG hybrid power-plant, as it looks to drive forward in coming years.

One of the keys is its coming line-up of mid-engined models, which Reichman said will benefit from an F1 connection, as well as electrification using grand prix technology in batteries and energy recovery.

“It’s a very very easy transfer of ideas. Information. The natural cross-fertilisation of ideas,” he said.

“There is knowledge to be learned. It’s part of our future. It has to be. We have to go on that journey.

“In our hyper cars and then into the core road cars, we have to develop and learn from those technologies.”

For Szafnauer, it’s all about racing.

“The entire team at Silverstone are very proud to be transforming. We were very competitive on track towards the end of last year,” he said.

“With Aston Martin, and everything they bring to the team, with renewed finances as well, it allows us to set the targets for the future. That’s massive.

“We want to again have multiple podiums. We have aggressive targets are to be best of the rest again. Our objective is to be the third-fastest car on the grid, and then use that to become more consistent and score more points. and beat the likes of McLaren and Renault and Ferrari again.”

And what about Vettel, who was miserable – and looked miserable – through his final year at Ferrari?

“We will definitely get him in the right place,” said the man know as ’The Schnauzer’.

“We thought it was a bright idea. To learn from him how to be world champions. He is proving that and he is showing us the way.

“Like any driver, really, it’s such a mental pursuit driving a racing car fast at the margins. We will get him back to his best.”