According to Autocar UK, Aston Martin is negotiating a return to Formula 1 with Red Bull Racing next season. Apparently, they are in talks to become a brand partner with four-time world champion Red Bull Racing, in exchange for brokering a deal for the team to run the all-conquering Mercedes-Benz F1 engine. The official Aston Martin spokesman has declined to comment on the deal, though.
Interestingly, Aston Martin, which is 5% owned by Mercedes, competed in Formula 1 back in 1959 and 1960 with not much success. If accurate, this new deal will recognise Mercedes as the official engine partner of Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin as the technical partner, with branding around the air box area.
It is rumoured that the deal has the blessing of Mercedes at board level, with reports suggesting that senior Mercedes board members are eager to run more customer teams to offset the costs of its investment in F1. Apparently, since Mercedes does not consider Aston Martin to be a competitor for road car sales, it is seen as an ideal partner for the project. Nonetheless, senior F1 personnel have since tempered such expectations after the revelations surfaced.
Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said, “we must be open-minded. Our number one objective is to win the world championship. At the moment I would say I cannot see a situation of us supplying an engine to our number one enemy – but maybe we need to recalibrate who our number one enemy is tomorrow and next year.” He went on to elaborate, by saying, “there are no discussions ongoing, nothing has been started, but you need to consider all the options. I’m leaving the door open.”
Meanwhile, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, told Autosport that the prospect of a Mercedes tie-in in the future is purely speculative as they have a contract with Infiniti and Renault until the end of 2016. Things are not that rosy as the Red Bull team has struggled to match the pace of the Mercedes team so far. Perhaps the strongest hint of a serious discord came when Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz claimed that Renault’s inability to improve its pace was ‘destroying’ his enjoyment of F1.
It should be noted that a technical partnership between Mercedes-AMG GmbH, a subsidiary of Daimler AG, and Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd is slated towards developing bespoke V8 engines with cutting edge technologies to combine both high performance and fuel efficiency. One can only imagine what may lie in the future for these two iconic brands if they do embark upon this synergy of excellence.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
I think Aston should just stick with 24Hr races or GT races. Those races make more sense.