Unlike endurance racing, Formula 1 isn’t losing appeal among carmakers. Le Mans champions Porsche is interested in joining the circus, and Aston Martin – currently an “innovation partner” of Red Bull Racing – wants to be more involved in the top tier racing series.
Amid media reports of a title partnership with Red Bull and future engine supply involvement, Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer told UK’s Channel 4 in Singapore: “We want to be more involved in the sport. We’re currently studying the 2021 engine. If we get a reasonable regulation that brings down the cost of the engine, Aston would like to be involved in the engine.”
“And then of course we’d like to be involved a little more next season and then join the dots. But it really depends on what happens with the engine regs,” the former Nissan exec added.
Sounds serious enough to us. Aside from the British marque’s branding on Red Bull’s F1 cars since last year, RBR’s top designer Adrian Newey worked with Gaydon on the latter’s Valkyrie hypercar.
Aston Martin is now owned mainly by Kuwaiti and Italian investors. Last month the luxury sportscar maker reported its first half-yearly profit in almost a decade, and is targeting full-year volumes to rise by around a third to roughly 5,000 cars. Aston is looking at the US market for future growth.
Liberty Media, the new owners of F1, and governing body FIA are deliberating on the engines that will power the cars post 2020, when the current agreement expires. The main aim is to bring down costs via a less complex engine than today’s 1.6 litre V6 turbo hybrid. That, it hopes, will attract more carmakers to the sport.
Aston Martin v Porsche v Ferrari v Mercedes-AMG on an F1 grid anyone?
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I hope one day it will be owned by China company.
I wonder why Englishmen cannot be better in their businesses? UK wake up !
something … anything … needs to be done over at F1. It’s just so boring… twice fell asleep watching the ‘excitement’