Ahead of the Russian Grand Prix, the former McLaren boss’s return to Formula 1 has been confirmed with Aston Martin, where he will head a newly formed company, Aston Martin Performance Technologies.
The 63-year-old has not been involved in Formula 1 since leaving McLaren in 2014, but has a wealth of world championship experience through 25 years at Woking.
Whitmarsh’s arrival will have no impact on team principal and CEO Otmar Szafnauer, who will continue to be responsible for the day-to-day running of F1 operations.
Instead, Whitmarsh will take on a full role as Head of Group Technology, leveraging his experience over the past few years as CEO of the Ineos America’s Cup team.
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Aston Martin’s newly created division was inspired by the setups at McLaren and Williams and will work in a similar way, bringing F1 technology and expertise to other areas of their respective businesses.
“It doesn’t change anything for me, I will remain team principal and CEO,” said Szafnauer in an interview with Sky Sports on Friday in Sochi.
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“Martin will be appointed as Group CEO, so obviously we’re going to have a group of companies now, much like McLaren did with their applied technologies. We want to do the same and extract some of the technology and intellectual property that was created and developed for Formula 1 and applied elsewhere.
“Martin has a wealth of experience in the past seven years. He was a boat racer and also started a company that grew out of the technology developed for boat racing.
“So he’s ideal to help us grow this business and he’ll be the Group CEO of it.”
Under the leadership structure, Szafnauer and the F1 organization Whitmarsh will provide feedback, which in turn will report to Aston Martin chairman and team owner Lawrence Stroll.
“Martin will report to the chairman and all group companies will report to Martin, among which Formula 1 will be one of these group companies,” explained Szafnaeur.
Stroll described Whitmarsh as “the ideal person” to lead Aston Martin to success in Formula 1, while Whitmarsh himself was convinced of the ambitious project of the Silverstone-based team.
“Lawrence intends for Aston Martin to simply win the F1 World Championship and I would not have joined him in this endeavor unless I firmly believed it was an entirely achievable goal,” said Whitmarsh.
“I know what it takes to win in Formula One and, inspired by Lawrence’s leadership and supported by the skill, passion and determination of the people, I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that our team becomes the winning venture that Lawrence is determined. ” that it should be. “
Aston Martin also recently officially confirmed that four-time world champions Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll will stay with the team for 2022.
Stroll’s plan to turn Aston Martin into a world championship F1 team includes building a state-of-the-art factory with a brand new wind tunnel and simulator, which will cost between £ 150 million and £ 200 million and which broke ground earlier this month.
Aston Martin has also hired several key figures to restructure its engineering department as part of an aggressive recruiting campaign spearheaded by the appointment of current Red Bull Aero chief Dan Fallows as new technical director.
“The ambitions are great and it takes time,” said Szafnauer. “If you look back, it took Red Bull four years after they bought Jaguar to win. Mercedes – it also took them four years and bought a championship team in Brawn.
“That’s why it takes time to build the infrastructure, put the right people together and make sure that the glue that holds us all together is also right. And then hopefully in four or five years we’ll knock on the door of a championship. “
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