The biggest project that started in 2021 for Aston Martin has finally seen the light of day in 2023. The astonishing performances that you see in 2023 from the Silverstone outfit had its foundation laid in September 2021 by owner, Lawrence Stroll. The billionaire invested $220 million into creating a new factory and campus at its Silverstone headquarters. And even before the project nears completion, the team has started reaping its benefits.
400,000 square feet of floor space is what the new campus will house its facilities on. Aston Martin, which began as Jordan in 1991, used the same decades-old facilities for the longest time. To change the face of how the team works in an attempt to better the efforts for success, Stroll pulled off a masterstroke with this huge investment. According to Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack, the genius move is “already benefitting” the British Giants.
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“We’re already benefiting,” said Krack, as quoted by Motorsport-Nextgen.auto. “We saw this when we worked between the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix to rework parts and make changes to the car before Spa. You could see physically that it helped us work faster and be more efficient.” [translated via Google]
Several people at Aston Martin like Martin Whitmarsh had claimed how this new factory campus will be a masterstroke in the Silverstone team’s climb up the F1 ladder. While justifying the team’s efforts like its Honda partnership, Whitmarsh also seconded Krack’s sentiments a few months back on the cruciality of their new factory & infrastructure in the team’s F1 ambitions.
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Now we know that the Silverstone-based team is on track to do something revolutionary in its journey. But how did it all start?
Lawrence Stroll explains the aspirations behind the construction of their mammoth Silverstone campus
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Lawrence Stroll is a sharp man and has made the money to back himself to achieve the highest degree of success. Ever since he entered F1 in 2018, he showed his leadership skills and took Racing Point to fight for podiums and victories. With Aston Martin, he wanted to do even better and at a bigger scale. That is where this sizeable investment came into the picture.
“It shows my belief in the team, confirms my ambition, and confirms my belief in F1,” said Stroll. “The improvement in communications and research, development, and design was a necessity. We could not continue to grow to the headcount I want to grow to with the existing premises. Not possible. Full stop.”
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The Wind Tunnel and Simulator are two aspects of the factory that are yet to be built. Once that is done, the team will have all operations under one roof. Thus, streamlining processes and helping them reach greater heights in Formula 1.
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