The Formula One Times can reveal that Prodrive have announced, in a collaboration with Aston Martin, that they will enter Formula One in 2010 before re-branding as Aston Martin in 2012. The announcement follows a deal signed with commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone last night.
The new Prodrive/Aston Martin team will have close ties with McLaren Racing, whose largest shareholder is Daimler and use Mercedes-Benz engines.
When the crossover to Aston Martin is complete in 2012, the team will be a fully fledged manufacturer. The Gaydon-based sportscar manufacturer, which had a brief foray into F1 in the late 1950s and early 1960s, will put its name to a new F1 team to be launched next year by Banbury-based preparations experts Prodrive.
The details of the crossover have yet to be finalised, but Aston Martin boss David Richards, who brokered the deal and whose Prodive business runs all of Aston Martin’s current racing activities, told Autocar Magazine: “The cars will be built at Prodrive’s Banbury HQ and have Aston Martin-badged customer engines obtained from a supplier.
“These will be genuine Aston Martin cars. You wouldn’t like to do it any other way.”
Richards, an Aston Martin enthusiast since childhood, sees no comparison between the spirited foray into F1 of Jaguar, a sometime sportscar racer, and Aston Martin’s proposed 2012 F1 campaign.
“Ferrari was in sportscar racing before they started in grand prix racing,” he said. “Look what they’ve achieved.”
Richards also revealed to Autocar that Aston Martin already has two powerful Middle East-based backers for its F1 activities. One of them is Investment Dar, which owns 90 per cent of Aston Martin, and the other is a powerful but unconnected group.
The new F1 team is made possible, Richard says, by new rules that cap F1 expenditure, though he expects these to be watered down from the £40 million limit initially proposed for next year by FIA chief Max Moseley. The level of the limit and timing of its introduction is disputed by the established F1 teams.
It would now appear that Prodrive have a place secured in Formula One, so now may be the time for the teams opposing the 2010 rules to get a move on with their 2010 applications.
Article originally posted on www.f1times.co.uk
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