LONDON – British luxury automaker Aston Martin launched a new Formula 1 car on Wednesday before returning to the world’s most famous motor racing event.
The Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team unveiled the “AMR21” car at a virtual event that was broadcast from London. AMR21 will compete in the 2021 Formula One World Championship, which starts on March 28 in Bahrain.
Formula 1 is watched by millions of fans around the world and everyone, from Ferrari to BMW and Mercedes used this sport to promote the power of their brand.
Aston Martin 2021 F1 challenger – AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
Aston Martin has struggled financially and the price of its shares on the London Stock Exchange dropped sharply in 2020. The company hopes that Formula 1 will increase sales of Aston Martin road cars such as DB11, Vanquish and Vantage.
“To have a platform like Formula 1 to market our initiatives, to show us the technology and, finally, to bring this technology into our road cars … it’s a huge game changer,” said the executive president of Aston Martin, Lawrence Stroll, adding that it is a “monumental” moment.
Stroll acquired the Formula 1 team two and a half years ago and became Aston Martin’s chief executive in April last year, taking over a majority stake in the company.
“The first step was to raise funding to see our business plan over the next five years,” he told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum. “We raised $ 800 million in equity, most of it from me and my consortium. It was for a business plan that brings us to 10,000 cars, $ 2 billion in volume and $ 500 million in EBITDA. in the next four years. “
Stroll said the Aston Martin has a fantastic order book for its sports cars and the new DBX, which is Aston Martin’s first SUV. He added that DBX variants will come in the near future and that a hybrid will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The last car of the Aston Martin Grand Prix was the DBR5, which was driven by Roy Salvadori and Maurice Trintignant in the 1960 British Grand Prix.
Aston Martin 2021 F1 challenger – AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
The new car will be driven by German Sebastian Vettel and Canadian Lance Stroll.
“Even though I have competed for four Formula 1 teams for many years, starting a new season with a new team still gives me a sense of excitement,” Vettel said in a statement.
“I always kept an eye on the competition and this team constantly impressed me with what they managed to do without the biggest budget.”
Vettel said he was immediately motivated to join the team when he was approached by Stroll and Otmar Szafnauer, CEO of the Aston Martin Formula 1 team.
AMR21 will make its track debut on Thursday before traveling to Bahrain next week before the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The main sponsor of the team is the IT giant Cognizant. Other sponsors include brewer Peroni, cryptocurrency website Crypto.com and cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.
Owned by Liberty Media, Formula 1 revenue was $ 877 million last year, down 43 percent from the Covid-19 pandemic.