Martin Whitmarsh was back where he belonged last weekend. Well, he was in the Austin Formula 1 paddock. If he were back where he really belonged, he would have been in the McLaren garage. But the Aston Martin CEO is likely the next best thing to a man who would have bled for his beloved former team if it had been required during his 25 years in Woking.
With time and a future string of decent results, the team formerly known as Jordan, Midland, Spyker, Force India, and Racing Point could become its true F1 home away from home.
Lawrence Stroll did a good job in Whitmarsh. Former British aerospace engineer, Ron Dennis’ trusted lieutenant, did not reach the heights he expected of himself in so long as he served as McLaren’s team principal between 2009 and ’14 before his former friend had him removed from the Company. Some have written him off as too nice, too principled for a team boss. But you don’t survive in a senior F1 role as long as he does by being a pushover.
A man who has seen firsthand championship successes with Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton clearly has a lot to offer – and in the middle of his work for Sir Ben Ainslie’s Ineos America’s Cup yachting team, his name popped up in F1 Circles from time to time.
He almost made a Maserati F1 return before Luca di Montezemolo was ousted from the helm of Ferrari and Sauber became Alfa Romeo instead. It also says a lot about Hamilton’s appreciation for Martin that he personally recruited him to the commission of the same name that the seven-time champion set up to investigate the lack of ethnic minorities in British motorsport.
In a conversation I had with Whitmarsh last year, he reflected on how proud he was to have been asked by Hamilton to join the commission and announced that they had recently been offered an offer as F1- Appointing team leader for a team for which he was not prepared.
“I’m a pretty strange, loyal person and just didn’t want to compete against McLaren,” was his telling comment – although he also admitted: “Never say never. I am still relatively young and fit [he’s 63]. This year I took my time off so that I do not hold any leadership positions. So there is a little longing for one last hurray.
Whitmarsh ran McLaren until 2013 but has been employed ever since
“But I’m open to anything if it’s challenging and different. Coming back and turning the same handles … it would have to be something extraordinary. But maybe I got the best of it. I was team boss and chairman of FOTA “- the old Formula 1 teams association, which unfortunately did not exist -” so it had to be something very special. You can’t do it part time, it’s a 24-7 thing with good people on the team. But you can’t always choose the owners, they have to be exceptional, and neither are many. Well, they are extraordinarily rich … “
Heading Aston Martin’s F1 team certainly qualifies as “something very special”, although Whitmarsh, when Stefano Domenicali became CEO of F1, would have been as well suited for the role as his contemporary Ferrari, given Martin the ability has to see the bigger picture, sometimes beyond the selfish needs of McLaren and arguably to his own detriment during his time as team principal. His role in the Brawn GP, which gained power from Mercedes after Honda withdrew in 2009, is the prime example of this.
But it is Aston Martin – and what kind of task lies ahead of him. There’s this new factory, including a bespoke wind tunnel to be built and commissioned in Silverstone; further technical settings must be completed; a team that works together and structures to achieve the greatest impact; what must be a difficult internal management situation that has to be solved (one way or another) with team boss Otmar Szafnauer; not to mention one of those “extraordinarily wealthy” team owners who calm themselves down with signs of real and regular progress. As he said, it’s a “24-7 thing”.
“I would have been the one who tore up Lewis Hamilton’s contract!”
Along with all of this invaluable experience, Whitmarsh has a reputation for being a decent man who always stands up honestly for what he believes in – for the better of those around him, well beyond his own selfish needs. In our conversation, we pondered the time when he tore up Hamilton’s McLaren contract before the “Young Wonder” took F1 by storm. That could have been embarrassing.
“At the end of his first year in Formula 3, we had a lot of friction and differences of opinion [2004]Whitmarsh recalled. “He wanted to go to GP2” [in 2005], Nico [Rosberg] went to GP2 [and would end up champion] and I wanted him to do F3 another year. It was a source of tension. I didn’t feel there was any rush and he had to get back to his karting sport with that confidence he’d lost. I wanted Lewis to have the pressures of a second season.
“In your rookie year, you can always apologize because there are always those who have done a few more years and you are learning. If you stay behind, you go into a season with pressure as a favorite and you have to deliver.
“In this second F3 season he restored the security he had in karting. He didn’t want it, I even released him from his contract. I’m glad he and his father came back, otherwise I would have been the one to tear up Lewis Hamilton’s contract! I moved him from John Booth’s Manor Motorsport to Fred [Vasseur] at ART and he dominated the European series. He was then more ready to graduate into GP2 with career dynamism and self-confidence. Hopefully Lewis now believes that it was the right decision. “
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