LONDON – British luxury car maker Aston Martin launched a new Formula 1 car on Wednesday before its return to the most famous motorsport event in the world.
The Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team unveiled the “AMR21” car at a virtual event that was broadcast from London. The AMR21 will compete in the 2021 Formula 1 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 to Mercedes has used the sport to promote the strength of their brand.
Challenger of the Aston Martin 2021 F1 – the AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
Aston Martin has been struggling financially and its stock price on the London Stock Exchange has dropped dramatically in 2020. The company expects Formula 1 to increase sales of Aston Martin road cars like the DB11, Vanquish and Vantage.
“Having a platform like Formula One to market our initiatives, showcase our technology and finally bring that technology to our road cars … is a huge game changer,” said Aston Martin Executive President Lawrence Stroll, adding that it is a monumental moment.
Stroll acquired the Formula One team two and a half years ago and became chief executive officer of Aston Martin last April, taking over most of the company’s shares in the process.
“The first step was to raise the funding to see our business plan for the next five years,” said Julianna Tatelbaum of CNBC. “We raised $ 800 million in equity, with most of it coming from me and my consortium. That was for a business plan that leads to 10,000 cars, $ 2 billion in volume and $ 500 million in EBITDA over the next four years. “
Stroll said 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 variants of the DBX will arrive in the near future and that a hybrid will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The last Aston Martin Grand Prix car was the DBR5, which was driven by Roy Salvadori and Maurice Trintignant at the 1960 British Grand Prix.
Challenger of the Aston Martin 2021 F1 – the AMR21.
Source: Aston Martin
The new car will be driven by German Sebastian Vettel and Canadian Lance Stroll.
“Even though I have raced for four Formula One teams and for many years, starting a new season with a new team still gives me a feeling of excitement,” said Vettel in a statement.
“I have always kept my eye on the competition and this team has consistently impressed me with what they have been able to do without the biggest budgets.”
Vettel said he was immediately motivated to join the team when he was approached by Stroll and Otmar Szafnauer, the CEO of Aston Martin’s Formula One team.
The AMR21 will make its track debut on Thursday, before traveling to Bahrain the next week before the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The team’s main sponsor is the IT giant Cognizant. Other sponsors include beer maker Peroni, cryptocurrency website Crypto.com and cyber security firm SentinelOne.
Owned by Liberty Media, Formula 1 revenues were hit by $ 877 million last year, down 43% as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.