Aston Martin’s Formula 1 history is not particularly well-known, largely because the British automaker withdrew from high-class single-seater racing in 1960 to instead achieve enormous success in sports car and endurance racing. When long-time motorsport partner Prodrive made several attempts in Formula 1 between 2006 and 2010, there was a possibility that the team could fly under the flag of Aston Martin. However, it ended with a 2016 Red Bull Racing sponsorship that was recently terminated by the Treasury Department’s takeover of Lawrence Stroll, who will rename his Racing Point team to Aston Martin for 2021.
After youngest race winner Sergio Perez is replaced by Sebastian Vettel and the son of Canadian billionaire Lance Stroll stays exactly where he is, the Aston Martin name returns to Formula 1 in 2021 after keeping a fair distance for more than six decades would have. This gives us a great opportunity to look back on the brand’s single-seater history, highlighted by names like Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby. Of course, let’s not forget Count Louis Zborowski, an avid racing driver who was at least as rich in the 1920s as Lawrence Stroll is probably today.
Aston Martin was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford in a small London workshop to establish themselves on the UK’s mountaineering courses. At the beginning of the speed-obsessed 1920s, Lionel Martin also wanted to get into Grand Prix racing, where the wealthy son of a Polish count and an American heiress, Count Louis Zborowski, came into play.
Lionel Martin founded Aston Martin’s earliest side-valve open-wheel racer by providing the brand with around £ 10,000 and built two cars to race the Isle of Man TT in 1922. These two-seaters had a 1,486 cc engine developing 55 horsepower at 4,200 rpm and weighing just 1,653 pounds they could reach a top speed of 85 mph. The offset second seat was reserved for the driving mechanic, who was essential for hand pumping the fuel tank.
In 1922, both cars retired with engine problems, which only makes the genesis of the 1.5-liter more interesting. This is how Aston Martin remembers its development:
“Count Zborowski’s close friend and passenger, Clive Gallop, became acquainted with Peugeot engineer Marcel Gremillion. The talented Frenchman was a student of the great engine designer Ernest Henry, who was now with Ballot. Gremillion persuaded Henry to give him details about the 3, 0-liter option engine. Henry only tore his drawings in half, which Gremillion then built into the Bamford & Martin 16-valve single half in the lower half in exchange for what was described as a sizable bag of gold coins ! “
“With a blueprint torn in two, the 3.0-liter engine designed by Henry became the Bamford & Martin single-cam with 16 valves, 1.5,” concluded Aston.
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