When Aston Martin announced they would enter Formula 1 for the 2021 season back in the winter of 2020, it was an announcement met with a huge level of excitement. The entry came via a £500 million rescue deal for the troubled car company, orchestrated by Racing Point team owner Lawrence Stroll, who in turn became the executive chairman of Aston Martin. His Racing Point team thus became the factory Aston Martin F1 outfit. Further down the line, Stroll and the team announced that four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel would join Aston Martin on a multi-year deal, after the team elected to drop Sergio Perez who ended up moving to Red Bull. It also marked the first time Aston Martin had been in Formula 1 since 1960, after their failed first crack at the sport.
There were high hopes for 2021 after, as Racing Point, the team took podiums, a pole position, and a win in 2020, only narrowly losing out to McLaren in the battle for third place. But, a change to the floor regulations for 2021 and a move away from a direct Mercedes car copy thanks to a rule clarification means that this year, Aston Martin is trying to just make the top five, rather than be third. But ultimately, Aston Martin will eventually succeed again in the top level of motorsport.
The Man At The Helm
To guide them to the front of Formula 1, there is no better man than Lawrence Stroll. The Canadian businessman is a man with huge ambitions, and he has poured a lot of money into the Silverstone-based team after rescuing them from administration back in 2018. This allowed the then Force India, subsequently Racing Point team, to finally have the budget it had been after for so many years and allowed them to pursue the “pink Mercedes” concept in 2020, creating a car that was almost a direct copy of the 2019 title winning Mercedes W10.
Stroll has also helped fund son Lance’s F1 career over the last few years, starting at Williams before moving to the now Aston Martin team in 2019, and whilst he has his critics, Stroll junior can put in some very impressive performances, witness his pole position in Turkey last year, and his opening stint performance, a race that without front wing damage he probably would have won. Despite the struggles of this season so far, Stroll senior knows he has a team capable of doing great things, and one of those is a certain Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel, The Masterstroke Signing?
When it was announced that Racing Point had signed Vettel for 2021 and its Aston Martin journey, it raised eyebrows. On the one hand, the vast majority were happy that Vettel, dumped quite unceremoniously by Ferrari before the delayed 2020 season even started, had found a drive for 2021 and beyond. But there were those who doubted his ability, after a shaky 2019 at Ferrari that saw new teammate Charles Leclerc get the upper hand, and 2020 hadn’t fared much better to that point either with a car that was incredibly difficult to drive, and well off the pace of the likes of Mercedes, and even Racing Point.
But with the summer break now starting at the time of writing, Stroll might have just made his best move thus far. Vettel had a tough start to 2021, with a poor run of reliability in pre-season testing compromising his early races. But he scored a mega fifth-place finish in Monaco, and followed that up with a sensational drive in Baku to take second in all the chaos of that day, which would have at the very least been a fantastic fourth place before some of that race's madness. Vettel also took another second place on the road in Hungary behind shock winner Esteban Ocon, pending an appeal for his fuel-related disqualification.
Vettel is clearly gelling well with his new team, with a lot of his struggles recently at Ferrari put down by many to simply be the environment he was in wasn’t doing him any good. He appears to have got to grips now with the AMR21 car, and is getting the upper hand on Stroll in qualifying, although Lance is doing a good job in comparison. It seems like all that is missing now is a car on the level of the Racing Point of 2020 at the very least, to fully unlock a Vettel who seems back to his best again.
The Technical Team
Led by technical director Andrew Green, there is a technical team at Aston Martin who has really punched above their weight in recent years. As Force India, the team finished fourth in the championship in 2016 and 2017, and showed what they could do with the right funding with the 2020 Racing Point/Pink Mercedes. Whilst 2021 hasn’t been that successful, the team is slowly improving the car, and there is a sense that 2021 could just be a blip before the big technical changes for 2022, which could see the team jump back up the order again.
Also, some credit must go to Lance Stroll. Lance comes under fire a lot, quite unfairly, because of the money his dad brings to his career, let alone basically buying a team so his son can drive for them. But Lance can put in a good turn of speed and will have been instrumental in moving the team forward from 2019 into 2020, and helping improve the car in 2021. He and Vettel appear to have a great working dynamic, and if Lance can just sort out his consistency, he will become a fine Grand Prix driver, and who knows, maybe his first win will come sooner rather than later.
Watch Out For Aston Martin
Despite the blip that has been 2021 so far, this is a team with huge ambitions and with the drive to move forwards. Team principal Otmar Szafnauer is a no-nonsense, straight-talking leader who works well with his team, drivers, and Stroll senior, and of course would have helped Stroll make the tough call to let Sergio Perez go to bring in Vettel, and he has stuck with the team through the dark times of 2018 to help lead one of the most iconic brands returns to the sport. He certainly seems the right man for the job.
Overall, this team knows what they are capable of. They are now proven race winners under their Racing Point guise. They have a young and hungry driver in one car, and an experienced, still fast, and four-time world champion in the other. Furthermore, they have an owner who, not only has the money, but also has the ambition and can walk the walk, to make this team a successful one. We should watch out for Aston Martin. Who knows where this journey will take them.
Sources: Motorsport Magazine, The Times, Archyde, Sports Lumo, Aston Martin, ASN Motorsports, Formula Spy, F1Li, Formula 1