How Stroll plans to build Aston Martin into F1 world champions

Lawrence Stroll is a man who likes getting what he wants. And, right now, what he wants above all else is to turn his Aston Martin Formula 1 team into winners and world champions.

While those ambitions are not much different to those countless other team owners before him have had as they began their journey in the series, few have ever levelled up resources and quite gone on the attack like Stroll is right now.

His team, which ruffled some feathers last year with its ‘Pink Mercedes’ concept, has upped the ante in going on a huge recruitment drive to poach staff from rivals, and it hasn’t been afraid to shout out at what it felt were unfair rule changes that hurt the low-rake cars for this season.

At front and centre of it all is the hugely driven Stroll, whose success in the business world has shown him that sitting back and being the nice guy is not going to deliver anything on the F1 grid.

“If you're going to be a push around, for lack of a better word, I don't think you're going to succeed in this sport or in any other sport,” he says this week in a rare chat to the media.

“I don't know that I've been a disrupter. I've stood for what I believe to be correct. I have not made a significant investment in this company, not to be fighting for world championships. So we're going to do whatever it takes, within the rules, obviously.

“And being a gentlemen, I don't think we've done anything that any other team wouldn't want that's trying to build a fantastic organisation. I speak out when I think something's been wrong.”

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Stroll's track record in the corporate world, having most famously helped build the Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors brands into global giants, had offered the F1 world clues about the kind of conviction the Canadian has for making a success of things.

Yet, it is the rebranding this year of Racing Point in to Aston Martin that has served to ratchet up the intensity in ensuring that everything is in place to achieve Stroll’s lofty targets.

He is realistic to know that success will not come quick – there is a five-year target for title glory – nor that it will be cheap.

It is the rebranding this year of Racing Point in to Aston Martin that has served to ratchet up the intensity in ensuring that everything is in place to achieve Stroll’s lofty targets

But, if you want any evidence of how every decision taken is based on the metric of success, then you need look no further than the team’s windtunnel situation.

Back in January, Aston Martin’s technical chief Andy Green felt confident that a sharing deal the team has in using the Mercedes windtunnel would be enough to suit its needs for the long haul.

As the team dug deeper into where gains could be made, though, it quickly realised that actually it would be better off having its own bespoke facility. While the bigger F1 teams need to balance the books amid the new cost cap regulations, the rules state that property costs are excluded from the current $145 million limit, therefore providing an opportunity for expansion.

And, rather than baulk at the huge cost of building one from scratch, especially as it is already spending big on a new state of the art factory, Stroll signed off the plans.

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21, makes a pit stop

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“Andy changed his mind,” smiles Stroll about the windtunnel situation. “He came back to me, and he said: ‘Look, I realised there is upside potential on the times and availability we currently have using Mercedes, to have the luxury, if I could use that word, of having our own.

“He said, ‘if you really want to be world champions, it’s a tool we’re going to need’. So he changed his tune. It cost me a little bit of money, that change of tune, too! I was happy with his first concept!”

As well as the top facilities, Aston Martin’s recruitment drive is ongoing. Having operated with around 400 staff in the Racing Point era, the team has added around 100 more personnel since then It wants to get its numbers up to around 800.

And, having already lured some senior Red Bull staff, including its head of aero Dan Fallows to be its new technical director, Stroll says more big names are on the way.

“We are hiring brilliant new senior technical and engineering talent, all the time, and the result will be a technical and engineering strength in the company, and the depth equal to, if not better than, any other Formula 1 team,” he says.

“We announce pretty much almost on a weekly basis now, hiring brilliant new senior technical and engineering talent. By the way, this week we'll be announcing another very senior member of another team joining us...”

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, and Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, at the drivers parade

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The investments in the factory, facility and staff are huge, and Stroll accepts that success in F1 isn’t going to come cheap. So if he wants to achieve his ambitions the chequebook needs to come out.

“You have to be a very wealthy individual or a very large corporation to be able to afford to be in Formula 1,” he says.

“This is a sport that is very capital intensive. For example, building a new factory, building a new windtunnel, that's well over a cost of £150 million. There's significant investment.”

“I’ve been around this sport one way or another for the past 32 years so I'm not exactly a newcomer to it. As in my previous businesses I want to bring that winning culture to this business” Lawrence Stroll

But it is clear that it not just spending power that Stroll is bringing to the party; for finances are just one of four key cornerstones that he believes will define whether Aston Martin remains a midfield outfit or goes on to achieve success.

Stroll reckons for an F1 team to become champions it needs three other things beyond money: the best tools, the best people, and the best process – in terms of management.

“We check all the four boxes of how we're going forward, and have a very clear vision,” he says. “I’ve been around this sport one way or another for the past 32 years so I'm not exactly a newcomer to it. As in my previous businesses I want to bring that winning culture to this business…”

Right now it is clear that Stroll is a man on a mission.

Lawrence Stroll, Owner, Aston Martin F1, with the Aston Martin AMR21

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images