Aston Martin chief executive Lawrence Stroll expects to see a step forward from his team in its sixth year under his ownership.
Stroll has invested heavily in the team, which he rebranded as Aston Martin in 2021. The size of its workforce has doubled and it has constructed a massive extension of its premises, where it launched the new AMR23 for the upcoming season today.
Speaking ahead of the car’s presentation the team’s billionaire owner said his goal is to create “one of the greatest Formula 1 teams that will be.”
“The building is one step, the people are another step,” Stroll explained. “We already had 400 very talented people that punched above their weight before. We’ve basically doubled that headcount. And we’ve added this incredible facility, nothing like it in Formula 1 today. It’s state of the art and doesn’t compare to anything else that exists.
Gallery: Aston Martin AMR23 “We’re doing the same thing in the road car side of the business. We’ve introduced the greatest SUV in the world, the DBX and we’re about to launch all these great new sports cars.
“So the passion comes from excitement. And when I get excited about something, I get very passionate, and when I get very passionate, I win.”
Aston Martin finished seventh in the championship for the last two years in a row. Stroll expects them to make a step forward in 2023.
“We’ve already had some extraordinary people in the business, the team was successful before I took it over,” he said. “But the people we recently brought in with the people we currently had, are bringing this to a whole new level and as I say, looking forward to be fighting for world championships in the future.
“Formula 1, like any other businesses, is a journey. This will only be our third year in this journey and as I think everybody knows whether it’s Formula 1 or any other business it takes a little longer than three years but the plan this year is to make a step and next year make another step and the year after another step until we’re winning and ultimately fighting for world championships.”
Stroll believes the team has “most of the right ingredients in place” to reduce the gap to the front-runners. “The one ingredient we’re missing is a bit of time and there’s no replacement for time.
“But from a managerial executive level, from a personnel level, yes, I believe we have all the right people in place. This building brings a whole new dimension and dynamic to driving towards that success. And we just need to be – which I don’t have a great deal of – patient to get to where we ultimately want to be. We will get there.”
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