Aston Martin want to give F1 'a good kick up the arse'

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer says the British sportscar giants are ready to give Formula 1 "a good kick up the arse" as they ponder an entry into the sport in 2021. Liberty Media's proposed engine regulation change has angered teams like Mercedes and Ferrari, but Palmer has praised them previously.

Changes to engine rules and introducing a budget cap are two of the proposals causing the most friction, with Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne regularly threatening to pull the Scuderia out of F1.

Aston Martin are currently title sponsors of Red Bull and have been linked with supplying power units to them in the future.

Palmer has previously talked up Liberty's plans and he believes Aston Martin's interest could give F1's owners a key bargaining chip against Ferrari.

"Liberty obviously want a new engine [for 2021]. They want to move the sport on," Palmer told F1 Racing.

"The incumbent teams don't want to change the engine very much. In the old world, they would have won, wouldn't they? Red Bull at one moment were left out in the open.

"But now they've got someone sitting behind them saying, 'If you write the rules like this, we might be interested in providing an engine'. Now there's an alternative.

"Now, when Ferrari threaten to leave the sport, Liberty can go, 'well, Aston and Ferrari, same kind of space, same kind of customer type, maybe it's not such a bad thing if you want to leave'."

Although Marchionne has claimed that Liberty's plans will alter the "DNA" of F1, Palmer believes that focusing on more competitive racing actually strikes at the core of everything the sport should stand for.

"Right now, what does F1 need? F1 needs a good kick up the arse and to remember what it's there for," Palmer added.

"It's not about an ever-greater arms race. At its heart, it's about entertaining, appealing to petrolheads and about pushing technology.

"The way that we're acting and behaving right now, we're upsetting the establishment. We've got people talking. And even if at the end we're not there, maybe we helped in the process of improving the sport."