What Aston Martin's Honda deal reveals about its true F1 mindset

When rumours about a potential Formula 1 partnership between Aston Martin and Honda first emerged earlier this year, there seemed plenty of factors that talked against it.

The Silverstone-based squad seemed to be so firmly in bed with Mercedes that a change of course seemed, on the face of it, to be pretty hard to imagine.

After all, Aston Martin runs Mercedes customer engines, it takes its gearbox and rear suspension from its rival, and also uses its windtunnel. There is also a strong relationship between team owner Lawrence Stroll and Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

Outside of the F1 world, Mercedes is also a shareholder in the Aston Martin road car company and its engines are inside plenty of its road going sportscar models.

With such super close ties, having made significant progress on track, and well aware that Mercedes has always produced a solid engine, the downsides of throwing all that away for something that meant more work and with less of a safety blanket seemed plenty.

Furthermore, as Stroll embarks on his vision to make the prestigious Aston Martin road brand bigger and better, there would be a clear risk of its image being confused by a close association with Honda – whose target market when it comes to selling cars is very different.

But, while each of the above factors have been considerations, they ignore one element that stands above all else when it comes to understanding what is driving forward Aston Martin and its owner Stroll. Winning.

Aston's ambition to win has driven its works Honda tie-up

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Had the team taken the easy option and stuck with Mercedes purely because it was less complicated and better suited the purposes of the road car division, then that automatically opens up a sense of compromise for the F1 squad.

As Martin Whitmarsh, Group CEO of Aston Martin Performance Technologies, said about where a Honda tie-up fits in with Mercedes being a shareholder: “I guess the easy answer is it doesn't fit.

“Aston Martin Lagonda is a public company. One of its shareholders is Mercedes-Benz, as you are probably aware, and a significant proportion of its power units for the road cars comes from Mercedes-Benz. That is planned to continue.

“The nature of Formula 1 is, if you want to win, it means beating Mercedes. And it's extremely difficult to beat an organisation as good as Mercedes if you're reliant on them for intellectual property, facilities, components” Martin Whitmarsh

“We are purely focused on racing activities and we've chosen to partner Honda so we will be absolutely just focused on winning in F1 with Honda. Aston Martin Lagonda will continue to develop its own strategy.”

What is clear is that, while it is possible to focus on the potential downside of the switch from Mercedes to Honda, for Aston Martin the bottom line is very much that the competitive picture comes first.

And it is not one of the team looking to tread water on where it has got and settle back to being happy with being podium finishes and content to be the ‘best of the rest’ and ‘biggest surprise of the season’.

Stroll is very much driving everyone at Aston Martin towards victories, and will not accept anything being second best as a means of achieving it.

Lawrence Stroll has heavily invested in Aston's F1 infrastructure, which includes a new windtunnel

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz / Motorsport Images

It is the exact same mindset that has resulted in Aston Martin investing heavily in building its own windtunnel, rather than taking the easy option and continuing to use Mercedes’ facility – which is just a couple of miles down the road.

As Whitmarsh said: “The nature of Formula 1 is, if you want to win, it means beating Mercedes. And it's extremely difficult to beat an organisation as good as Mercedes if you're reliant on them for intellectual property, facilities, components.

“You’ve got to have the complete integration of facilities and process and approach. With the 2026 technical regulations, I think you're really going to demand a very, very substantial, full integration. And not just the sort of physical integration of components but the operational integration, to be able to deliver and to win to a much greater extent.

“So, in my view, it is very, very difficult to win championships consistently without a full works relationship, which is why we've made this decision and why we're delighted to have a fantastic partner like Honda.”

This approach is why there are no qualms within Aston Martin about the extra headaches that will come from taking the Honda route. This includes, in the cost cap era, having to build up again more design and manufacturing elements in its factory to produce its own gearboxes and rear suspension.

But there is never an easy road to winning in F1 and, as Whitmarsh admits, if Aston Martin wants to deliver it has to step up to the plate.

Aston is betting on success coming from standing on its own two feet

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“This is about the growing up of this team,” he said. “You set out to win in Formula 1, and that means beating existing partners. And that means in order to do that, we've got to be independent. We're building great, great facilities, and we're progressively pulling away from our dependence upon Mercedes-Benz. That's no reflection on them. They've done a fantastic job for us, and they continue to do a great job for us. But clearly, we're here to beat them. And that means we've got to be self-reliant.”

Amid Aston Martin’s clear single-minded focus in making it to the front of F1, it is obvious just why having Honda as a works partner makes total sense.

And it all goes back to the prophetic words that Lawrence Stroll uttered at the launch of this year’s impressive AMR23 when he talked about his enthusiasm for the Aston Martin brand.

“The passion comes from excitement,” he said. “When I get excited about something, I get very passionate, and when I get very passionate, I win.”

In his words, when Stroll gets passionate, he wins...

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images