LONDON – British luxury car maker Aston Martin launched a new Formula 1 car on Wednesday in anticipation of its return to the world’s most famous motorsport event.
The Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team unveiled the “AMR21” car during a virtual event broadcast from London. The AMR21 will compete in the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship, which kicks off on March 28 in Bahrain.
Formula 1 is watched by millions of fans around the world and everyone from Ferrari to BMW to Mercedes has used the sport to promote the strength of their brand.
Aston Martin 2021 F1 Challenger – the AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
Aston Martin is struggling financially and its share price on the London Stock Exchange has fallen sharply in 2020. The company hopes that Formula 1 will boost sales of Aston Martin road cars such as the DB11, the Vanquish and the Vantage.
“Having a platform like Formula 1 to market our initiatives, showcase our technology, and eventually bring that technology into our road cars … is a huge breakthrough,” said Lawrence Stroll, Aston Martin Executive Chairman. , adding that it was a “monumental” moment.
Stroll acquired the Formula 1 team two and a half years ago and became executive chairman of Aston Martin last April, acquiring a majority stake in the company.
“The first step was to raise the funding to realize our business plan for the next five years,” he told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum. “We raised $ 800 million in equity, most of which came from myself and my consortium. That was for a business plan that will bring us to 10,000 cars, $ 2 billion in volume and $ 500 million EBITDA over the next four years. “
Stroll said Aston Martin has a fantastic order book for its sports cars and the new DBX, Aston Martin’s first SUV. He added that variants of the DBX will be coming in the near future and a hybrid will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Aston Martin’s last Grand Prix car was the DBR5, which was driven by Roy Salvadori and Maurice Trintignant in the 1960 British Grand Prix.
Aston Martin 2021 F1 Challenger – the AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
The new car will be driven by Sebastian Vettel from Germany and Lance Stroll from Canada.
“Even though I have driven for four Formula 1 teams and for many years starting a new season with a new team still gives me a feeling of excitement,” Vettel said in a statement.
“I’ve always kept an eye on the competition and this team has always impressed me with what they’ve been able to do without the biggest budgets.”
Vettel said he was immediately motivated to join the team when approached by Stroll and Otmar Szafnauer, the CEO of the Aston Martin Formula One team.
The AMR21 will make its track debut on Thursday before traveling to Bahrain next week ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The team’s main sponsor is IT giant Cognizant. Other sponsors include beer maker Peroni, cryptocurrency website Crypto.com, and cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.
Owned by Liberty Media, Formula 1 sales hit $ 877 million last year, down 43% due to the Covid-19 pandemic.