Aston Martin’s return to F1 will benefit future models

Aston Martin will return to Formula 1 for the first time in more than 60 years and it plans to transfer technology from the highest level of motorsport to its upcoming hypercars and electrified vehicles.

The British brand was never a star in grand prix racing but now – thanks to the three-pointed star, a billionaire Canadian and a four-time world champion – there are big plans to change that.

Aston Martin has the brand, Lawrence Stroll has the money, Sebastian Vettel has the titles and Mercedes-AMG is providing the powerplant for the creation of the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team, for which Stroll's son Lance will also drive.

Lewis Hamilton won’t be losing sleep worrying about a challenge from Aston, but it is making the most noise since Jaguar made a failed attempt – with giant backing from Ford – to upset the pecking order in F1.

“It’s the pinnacle of motorsport. It’s where we deserve to be,” Aston’s chief creative officer, Marek Reichman, told carsales.

“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.”

Aston has been brilliant in sports car racing, most recently with a string of category wins at Le Mans, but its future in F1 is in the hands of a team which was most recently known as Force India. Before that it was also Jordan, Midland and Spyker.

Force India scored a win last year, helped by the same hybrid powerplant fitted to the factory Mercedes-AMG racers, and there is every reason to believe it could be the ‘best of the rest’ in the 2021 world championship.

Aston has a reputation for building some of the world’s best looking sports cars, as well as its first SUV, the Aston Martin DBX, but the F1 effort will be more about colours and trim.

“A fast car is a beautiful car. The stopwatch is all that counts,” says Reichman.

The head of the Aston Martin team, Otmar Szafnauer, says the same thing about the way the car looks but has big ambitions with a giant fighting fund.

“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.”

There is no promise to topple Mercedes-AMG or Red Bull Racing, but all the promises for the (re)newed team are good for F1 at a time when it is fighting for relevance and an audience in a post-COVID world.

Aston Martin is also promising to draw from technology in the F1 team, from its wind tunnel and the Mercedes-AMG hybrid powerplant, as part of its drive to electrify 90 per cent of its model range by 2030.

Key among them will be its coming line-up of mid-engined models including the Valkyrie and Valhalla, which Reichman says will benefit from an F1 connection, as well as electrified vehicles 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,” said Reichman.

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