QUOTE
Aston Martin is to enter F1 from 2012 as a fully-fledged manufacturer entrant, following to a deal agreed with Bernie Ecclestone, the F1 rights holder, last night.
The Gaydon-based sportscar manufacturer, which had an abortive foray into F1 in the late 1950s and early 1960s, will put its name to a new F1 team to be launched next year by Banbury-based preparations experts Prodrive.
The team will run in F1 from 2010 as Prodrive, before rebranding as Aston Martin in 2012. Before its foray into F1, it is anticipated Aston Martin’s Prodrive-run sportscar racing programmes will continue.
The new Prodrive/Aston Martin F1 team will have close links with McLaren Racing, whose largest shareholder is Daimler and whose cars use Mercedes-Benz engines.
The level of crossover has yet to be finalised, but Aston Martin boss David Richards, who brokered the deal and whose Prodive business runs all of Aston Martin’s current racing activities, told Autocar: “The cars will be built at Prodrive’s Banbury HQ and have Aston Martin-badged customer engines obtained from a supplier.
“These will be genuine Aston Martin cars. You wouldn’t like to do it any other way.”
Richards, an Aston Martin enthusiast since childhood, sees no parallel between the ill-fated foray into F1 of Jaguar, a sometime sportscar racer, and Aston Martin’s proposed 2012 F1 campaign.
“Ferrari was in sportscar racing before they started in grand prix racing,” he said. “Look what they’ve achieved.”
Richards revealed to Autocar that Aston Martin already has two powerful Middle East-based backers for its F1 activities. One of them is Investment Dar, which owns a majority stake in Aston Martin, and the other is a powerful but unconnected group.
The new F1 team is made possible, Richard says, by new rules that cap F1 expenditure, though he expects these to be watered down from the £40 million limit initially proposed for next year by FIA chief Max Moseley. The level of the limit and timing of its introduction is disputed by the established F1 teams.
The Gaydon-based sportscar manufacturer, which had an abortive foray into F1 in the late 1950s and early 1960s, will put its name to a new F1 team to be launched next year by Banbury-based preparations experts Prodrive.
The team will run in F1 from 2010 as Prodrive, before rebranding as Aston Martin in 2012. Before its foray into F1, it is anticipated Aston Martin’s Prodrive-run sportscar racing programmes will continue.
The new Prodrive/Aston Martin F1 team will have close links with McLaren Racing, whose largest shareholder is Daimler and whose cars use Mercedes-Benz engines.
The level of crossover has yet to be finalised, but Aston Martin boss David Richards, who brokered the deal and whose Prodive business runs all of Aston Martin’s current racing activities, told Autocar: “The cars will be built at Prodrive’s Banbury HQ and have Aston Martin-badged customer engines obtained from a supplier.
“These will be genuine Aston Martin cars. You wouldn’t like to do it any other way.”
Richards, an Aston Martin enthusiast since childhood, sees no parallel between the ill-fated foray into F1 of Jaguar, a sometime sportscar racer, and Aston Martin’s proposed 2012 F1 campaign.
“Ferrari was in sportscar racing before they started in grand prix racing,” he said. “Look what they’ve achieved.”
Richards revealed to Autocar that Aston Martin already has two powerful Middle East-based backers for its F1 activities. One of them is Investment Dar, which owns a majority stake in Aston Martin, and the other is a powerful but unconnected group.
The new F1 team is made possible, Richard says, by new rules that cap F1 expenditure, though he expects these to be watered down from the £40 million limit initially proposed for next year by FIA chief Max Moseley. The level of the limit and timing of its introduction is disputed by the established F1 teams.
Autocar
