Aston Martin and Red Bull are to build a new “hypercar” fast enough to make James Bond feel like a grand prix driver while bringing the British firm’s brand back to Formula One for the first time since 1960.
Both parties announced the partnership on Thursday at the championship-opening Australian Grand Prix where Aston Martin’s logo will appear on the team’s RB12 cars as part of a season-long deal.
Red Bull’s Adrian Newey, the sport’s most acclaimed and successful designer, is to work with Aston Martin’s design boss Marek Reichman on the superfast road car, dubbed Project AM-RB-001.
“Formula One offers the ultimate global stage to build wider awareness of the Aston Martin brand,” said the company’s chief executive Andy Palmer in a statement.
“However, this partnership will deliver even more than that when the hypercar that Aston Martin and Adrian Newey are in the process of developing hits the road.
“We are going to create a car that will excite and stir the imaginations of the car designers of the future and a global audience of sports car enthusiasts,” added Palmer.
Red Bull principal Christian Horner said Red Bull Advanced Technologies, led by Newey, would be using Formula One technology to produce “the ultimate of all road cars.”
Renault Engines
Aston Martin, whose cars are closely associated with fictional British secret agent Bond, were linked to Red Bull last season when the Formula One team were seeking Mercedes power units to replace their Renault engines.
Mercedes has a 5% stake in Aston Martin.
There were also talks with Force India about that team becoming an Aston Martin-branded outfit in partnership with Diageo-owned Scotch whisky brand Johnnie Walker.
Those discussions also came to nothing, with Johnnie Walker recently renewing their partnership with McLaren.
“We are kind of a cool brand. We attract a lot of attention from a lot of people and a lot of people talk to us,” Palmer told motorsport.com on Thursday when asked about those negotiations.
“But we are all about authenticity. So you get in an Aston, what looks like leather is leather, what looks like wood is wood. What looks like carbon is carbon. What sounds like a V12 engine is a V12 engine and it doesn’t have any hype on it.
“So authenticity was our number one concern here and simply putting a sticker on the side of an F1 car was never going to cut it for us.”