Aston Martin are a side continuing to grow at a rapid pace, both on and off the circuit.
Following significant investment by owner Lawrence Stroll – the father of Lance Stroll – Aston Martin have their own wind tunnel and a new factory, as well as an understanding now on how to compete with the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
Competing with these four sides is exactly what Aston Martin did throughout 2023, although they still fell just short of beating any of them in the Constructors’ Championship.
Nevertheless, the Silverstone-based side are on the rise, resulting in their value also increasing.
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According to reports by The Financial Times and Reuters, Stroll’s team are now worth somewhere around the $1 billion mark – a substantial rise from the team’s days known as Force India or Racing Point.
Because of the team’s meteoric rise in value and performance, some have pondered whether Stroll will soon consider selling up, just in case Aston Martin plateau in 2024.
The number of people thinking this increased at the end of the recently completed F1 season, after it was revealed that Aston Martin were going to receive outside investment.
It’s the first time this has happened since Stroll’s consortium bought the team, increasing the speculation that the Canadian was planning his exit route.
The team’s new investors are Arctos Partners’, who are a sports-focused private equity group.
It’s based on their investment to become “minority” shareholders that Aston Martin have been valued at around $1 billion, a nice figure should Stroll want to depart.
However, it appears that departing isn’t on Stroll’s agenda, with Aston Martin’s managing director of commercial and marketing Jefferson Slack insisting that the truth of the deal is the complete “opposite” of what’s been speculated.
“Lawrence is not a seller,” Slack told The Race.
“If you had somebody that wanted to come in [and say], ‘that’s my step, I’m gonna buy this percentage, then I’m gonna buy control’ – [Stroll is the] wrong guy to talk to.”
Stroll’s consortium is still the majority shareholders of the Aston Martin F1 outfit and will remain so for the foreseeable future, as Slack revealed that the new investors “would never buy a majority” stake in the team.
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“These guys [Arctos] would never buy a majority,” Slack said.
“They would never want to buy this, it’s not what they do. So it’s exactly the opposite.
“They are the last people you would sell to if you were trying to exit.”