Aston Martin are 'here to win' but Lawrence Stroll is powerless to make it happen

Aston Martin are slow. We know this, you know this, and Aston Martin absolutely know this. In times of sporting disaster like this, it's very tempting to blame the person at the very top of the tree. But what has Lawrence Stroll actually done wrong?

In many ways, the answer is 'surprisingly little'. For all the clowning that Stroll gets for keeping his son Lance employed as an F1 driver in his own team, the Canadian billionaire has in many ways been about as close to a model owner as anyone could've hoped for.

That feels weird to say about a team currently sitting in 10th place in the Constructors' standings, ahead of only a brand new team still feeling its way into the sport, but it's true.

He's not just done the basic thing you want from a rich owner, i.e. spent some of his money, but he's done it in a way that everyone in the sport broadly agrees was fairly smart.

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Lawrence Stroll: Good team owner?

Team's facilities looking a bit shabby and holding back development? Bang, shiny new £200million campus at Silverstone with all the modern bells and whistles.

One of the two or three best designers and aerodynamicists in the sport's history becomes available at a crucial time? Bang, Adrian Newey is in charge of making the team a fast race car.

Looking for an power unit supplier? Bang, convince one of the sport's historically great engine manufacturers - who had come and gone from the sport in the past and still found ways to power Williams, McLaren and Red Bull to multiple titles - to come back, just for you.

Now, that last one hasn't worked especially well. Not even convincing still-impressive two-time world champion Fernando Alonso to stick around can hide what has been an absolute stinker of a first year of the partnership. The question is whether that's Stroll's fault or not.

Again, the answer is 'not as much as it's tempting to think'. The Honda partnership was, conceptually, a good idea. They'd developed the previous cycle's best engine before handing it off to Red Bull to be rebadged, and the people who made that engine were still kicking around.

It wasn't Stroll who quietly reassigned them to other parts of the business, or who replaced them with less experienced alternatives. It wasn't Stroll putting together one of the most disastrous power units in modern F1. He, really, did his bit.

The chassis means nothing without the horses to pull it

As Ferrari have been showing lately, having a great chassis means very little if you don't have the horses under the hood to pull it along.

Aston seem to have a decent but unremarkable chassis at the moment - Newey arriving later than ideal in the process due to his Red Bull contract didn't help, so that should improve - but until they have a power unit package worth the name, they're stuck.

"We are here to win, and whilst our short-term focus remains on improving performance, I believe we have the world-class talent we need to achieve our long-term objectives."

That's what Stroll said when announcing this week that the team would keep the same driver lineup for 2027.

The real fork in the road that the team are approaching is whether they continue to work with Honda to right this year's wrongs - as he alludes to, that's a long-term process, a roadmap that will take another two or three years to lead anywhere good - or to go cap in hand to Mercedes and beg them accept another customer team.

The indications are all that the decision will be the former. Honda have a history of starting slowly and developing a great engine with time - it took a few years before they became a dominant force in the 80s, after four years in the 2000s they were able to power BAR to second behind Ferrari, and after their return in 2015...well, Red Bull can tell you just how well that partnership aged with time.

Stroll and Aston Martin are at the mercy of Honda

Aston Martin are at the mercy of Honda now. Stroll's done his part, now it's up to them.

Incidentally, if you're wondering, the answer's yes. Yes, it does feel very weird defending billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll on the internet. It's just hard to blame this shambles on a man who's essentially done things exactly the way that a rich team owner should.

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Written by

Chris Deeley - Editor

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