Aston Martin

Aston Martin are a British F1.5 constructor who competed in F1.5 with Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll. Aston Martin were originally Racing Point.

## History

### 2021

In January 2020, a funding investment from Racing Point owner Lawrence Stroll into Aston Martin saw him take a 16.7 percent stake in the company. This resulted in the commercial rebranding of Racing Point UK's Racing Point F1 Team into Aston Martin F1 Team for the 2021 season. The team competes with Mercedes power units, which it has done under its various names since 2009. Sergio Pérez was under contract to drive for them until 2022, but he was replaced by four-time World Drivers' Champion Sebastian Vettel, who previously drove at Ferrari, for the 2021 championship. As part of the rebrand, the team switched their racing colour of BWT pink to a modern iteration of Aston Martin's British racing green. Cognizant was also announced as the team's new title sponsor in January 2021. The Aston Martin AMR21 was unveiled in March 2021 and became Aston Martin's first Formula One car after a 61-year absence from the sport. Aston Martin have a new 37,000 square metres (400,000 sq ft) factory set to be operational by 2023 at their Silverstone base. The factory features three interconnected buildings and is based in a 30-acre site directly opposite the Silverstone circuit. Aston Martin is the sixth different constructor to operate from the Silverstone base since 1991.

Vettel earned Aston Martin's first podium by finishing third in the Monaco Grand Prix, then going on to win at the next race in Azerbaijan. Vettel finished second again in the Hungarian Grand Prix, but was disqualified due to a fuel sample issue. In June 2021, Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer confirmed that the team will expand its workforce from 535 to 800 employees. In September 2021, Aston Martin confirmed they would compete in 2022 with an unchanged driver lineup.

### 2022 Season

Vettel and Stroll stayed at the team for the 2022 season. Following a major regulation change, the Aston Martin outfit struggled to perform in the early rounds. In the opening two rounds Vettel did not compete due to contracting COVID-19 so Nico Hulkenberg took part in the race's. In Spain, Aston Martin brought a major upgrade which was visually similar to the F1.0 car of Red Bull, with some accusing Aston Martin of copying. Aston's first podium of the season came in Azerbaijan when Vettel finish 2nd behind Pierre Gasly.

Aston Martin would have to wait a while until the next podium which came for Vettel in Belgium. The second part of the season would be much better for the team. Scoring third in Belgium, followed by a 4th place finish in The Netherlands for Lance Stroll. Monza saw both cars retire however they bounced back in Sinagpore for Lance to finish third taking his first podium of the season, and Vettel finishing the race in 4th. This result promoted Aston above Alfa Romeo in the standings to third. In Japan, Vettel returned to the podium taking 2nd place finishing 0.011 seconds ahead of Alpine's Fernando Alonso. At the next race in America, Lance Stroll took Aston Martin's first pole position in the sport. Stroll would fail to get to the end of the race after a collision with Alonso, Vettel however made the podium finishing third. At the final round of the season Aston Martin finished on the podium again with Stroll finishing third.

Aston Martin finished the season third in the constructors behind Alpine and McLaren, with 342 points.

## Year-by-year chart

**Bold** indicates Drivers' Champion

 2022 | Mercedes |  Sebastian Vettel   Lance Stroll   Nico Hulkenberg | 3-22  All  1-2