Why F1 is on 'disruptive' Aston Martin's radar

F1 Racing: Why is Aston Martin in this relationship with Red Bull?

Andy Palmer: I'm going to have to give you a bit of background on the turnaround of Aston Martin because it's fundamental to that story. It's a seven-year plan moving the company from being a great brand that's a financial basket case, to being a very profitable company keeping that strong brand.

What we're trying to do is become the LVMH [Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton DSE] of luxury automotive. As you know, LVMH have lots of different brands, all looking for a different type of customer within the luxury area. So we're using the Aston brand, Lagonda and our partnerships, to do exactly that - to create the only car group that could address all aspects of the luxury grid. Ferrari aren't going to make a three-box saloon to compete with Rolls Royce, and Rolls Royce aren't going to make a mid-engined car to compete with Lamborghini. But we can, in all cases.

The first two years of the plan were to reconstruct the company, stabilise it financially. The second phase of the plan is to replace the cars that we are famous for. At the end of 2019 we go to portfolio expansion. One big segment is the mid-engined sports cars in which you've got McLaren, Ferrari and Lamborghini. We're missing that critical sector where we have nothing today. To be credible in it you've got to create history and provenance.

F1R: In terms of the partnership, what do you actually do with Red Bull, and for Red Bull?

AP: At the simplistic level, Red Bull technology provided an engineering service to Aston to create the basic design of the Valkyrie. Now it's a deeper partnership, and in fact I'm in the process of siting 110 people on their campus in Milton Keynes. It's a collaboration hopefully with a deep future. But at its simplest level, we're bringing Adrian's way of designing an F1 car and embedding it in a road car. Adrian doesn't know too much about road cars and we don't know too much about F1 cars. You allow that clash of cultures to happen and see what comes out. The way of making that embedded, is to have the staff sitting next to each other.

F1R: Fantastic name, brand, heritage, but what does Aston Martin bring to F1?

AP: With the name, you have the cachet of sporting elegance, luxury. But we also bring disruption. The way that we're acting and behaving right now, we're upsetting the establishment. We've got people talking. Right now, what does F1 need? F1 needs a good kick up the arse and to remember what it's there for. It's not about an ever-greater arms race. At its heart it's about entertaining, appealing to petrolheads and about pushing technology. I think that when you think about the arguments that are going on, we can say, "We can be as disruptive to this as you want." And even if at the end we're not there, maybe we helped in the process of improving the sport.

F1R: When you say disruptive, what do you mean? That's something Red Bull has always said about itself.

AP: That's probably why we get on so well. Liberty obviously want a new engine [for 2021]. They want to move the sport on. The incumbent teams don't want to change the engine very much. In the old world, they would have won, wouldn't they? Red Bull at one moment were left out in the open. But now they've got someone sitting behind them saying, "If you write the rules like this, we might be interested in providing an engine." Now there's an alternative. Now, when Ferrari threaten to leave the sport, Liberty can go, "Well, Aston and Ferrari, same kind of space, same kind of customer type, maybe it's not such a bad thing if you want to leave."

F1R: So would you build an F1 engine yourselves?

AP: I genuinely don't know. I'm not under any illusions about how difficult doing an F1 engine would be - I'm a powertrain engineer originally. Clearly we can't compete against today's engines. The money that's being spent on them - forget it! If we're really going to simplify, and cap development costs, there's a possibility we could be involved. But if I were to get involved, I'd do it with partners. If we can, we will, but we are not going to provide an engine to Red Bull that's going to sit at the back of the grid.