Construction has begun on Aston Martin’s new Formula 1 factory as part of the team’s long-term championship aspirations.
Lawrence Stroll acquired the Force India outfit mid-2018 and it was renamed Aston Martin for 2021 after spending two years under the temporary Racing Point guise.
The outfit has been based at Silverstone since its early Formula 1 days in the early 1990s and a new factory will be built on land acquired by Stroll that surrounds the existing facility.
The project has so far been delayed due to the pandemic but a formal ground-breaking ceremony took place last week.
The three-unit factory is now expected to be completed by late 2022 or early 2023.
The commissioning of an on-site wind tunnel is also due for Q3 of 2023.
“It is inspiring to look at where we are now in the context of the architectural and organisational challenges and ambitions that lie ahead,” said Stroll.
“Our new buildings reflect not only the scope of our determination to become a World Championship-winning force, but also the scale of our growth and development as an organisation.
“I feel strongly that any building is a powerful representation of the people who work within it, and I am thrilled that we are creating a new home in which people can work, collaborate, create and win together.
“It is exciting to think that the entire team will be in its new home by the end of 2022 or the start of 2023, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners who are working on the project.”
“‘This is the reverse of what Ron Dennis did with Norman Foster, with the McLaren Technology Centre,’ Stroll said during the new facility’s ground-breaking ceremony.”
This pretty much sums up Aston Martin — boring and uninspiring. AM is only $1.2 BILLION in debt… money is now apparently printed out of thin air, so why not add another another quarter of a million for something the company doesn’t even need? The whole Stroll-AM plan seems very much like Dany Bahar at Lotus about a decade ago — unrealistic. Something just seems odd about all of it.
Sorry, *quarter of a BILLION. Also, I think this pretty much says it all:
“It’s not any different to any other sports assets, if you look at an NFL football team for example. Ten years ago, an NFL football team was worth a billion dollars, but today you can’t buy a franchise for less than $4 or $5 billion. So this is a long term plan.”
In other words, Stroll is pumping other people’s money into AM in hopes that he can sell it in a few years for multiple times more than he paid for it. I assume this will happen after his son fails for win a championship.