Aston Martin address Lawrence Stroll sale rumours after investor concerns raised

Aston Martin's CEO has spoken out after the brand's F1 team owner Lawrence Stroll completed a landmark £50m sale.

Last week, some good news finally came Stroll’s way after two painful weeks of pre-season testing in Bahrain, where his team — entrusted to Adrian Newey — endured a devastating start to the sport’s new era.

Though Aston Martin's F1 driver duo of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso have shared criticisms of the AMR26 and the team's new Honda power unit, the Silverstone squad were able to boast a bit of a cash injection last week when it was announced the brand's F1 naming rights had been sold to AMR GP Holdings, a company which is also indirectly controlled by Stroll.

According to Financial Times however, this sale raised concerns with investors that the Canadian businessman may be eyeing up a sale of the F1 team altogether, having acquired the name before rebranding the team formerly known as Racing Point ahead of the 2021 season.

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Stroll's Aston Martin sale 'not an exit strategy'

Aston Martin CEO Adrian Hallmark has now spoken out to defend Stroll's £50m naming rights sale however, reassuring fans and stakeholders that the action is in no way an indication of an exit from the sport in the near future.

"I can’t speak for Lawrence directly but everything I’ve seen in the past 15 months demonstrates more commitment to this brand than probably any other shareholder in the history of this brand," Hallmark told Financial Times.

The former Bentley CEO went on to state that Stroll's sale of the F1 naming rights was “supportive and not an exit strategy at all”, seemingly putting the minds of Aston Martin's investors at ease ahead of the upcoming 2026 championship.

F1's new regulations cycle is likely to test former Red Bull design chief Newey as he tackles the challenge of transforming Aston Martin into a title-contending outfit, and if pre-season testing is anything to go, Stroll's squad are already on the back foot.

During January's Barcelona shakedown, the team's driver duo only completed a mere 65 laps in Newey's first Aston Martin F1 car, with the design genius admitting they even ran out of time to paint the AMR26 properly.

Things then failed to improve in Bahrain in February when Aston Martin once again finished the two testing stints with the lowest lap count out of all 11 teams, with Honda confirming they found a battery-related issue, limiting their running on the final day.

On top of this, the fact that a brand new wave of chassis and power unit regulations have come into play just as Aston Martin become a works team with Honda may prove to be fatal timing, with the team unable to fall back on the data from any other Honda customer teams on the grid.

One thing is clear, 2026 could be make or break for the Aston Martin F1 team.

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