Martin Whitmarsh says he's here to make Aston Martin winners in F1

Aston Martin F1 team’s chief executive Martin Whitmarsh says his main goal in his current role is to transform the team into Formula 1 race and title winners.

Whitmarsh’s previous stint in the sport came when he was at the McLaren F1 team. He spent 24 years with the team, winning a combined 10 driver’s and constructor’s championships.

He was also at the helm of the team when they won their last world title in 2008. And it is something he wants to repeat at new team Aston Martin.

“For me, to see a great brand, Aston Martin, up on the top step of the Formula One podium will be incredibly satisfying. Frankly that’s why I’m here,” he told Reuters.

There has also been some debate over what the remit of his role is. He won’t be the team principal – that role falls to the recently-hired Mike Krack.

Krack, it’s worth noting, was previously BMW’s motorsport head and also worked in F1 when the German company owned the Sauber team.

Interestingly, Krack’s time in the sport also saw him work with Sebastian Vettel – who is currently at Aston Martin.

But Whitmarsh’s role is a broader one, and pertains to overseeing the massive changes taking place at the team previously known as Force India and later Racing Point.

“Formula One is quite an addictive topic, I have to say. So at the moment I’m giving quite a lot of time and energy to that.

“Therefore I’m going to be pretty involved. I think I have a reasonable amount of influence on the success or otherwise of the team in the coming years.”

Martin Whitmarsh on how F1 has changed

It’s also worth noting that the sport Whitmarsh is returning to is quite different from the one he left. His time at McLaren ended in 2014, the first year of the turbo-hybrid era.

But F1 was also not in a good place commercially. Now things have changed; new rights owners Liberty Media have taken steps to popularise the sport and increase its reach.

This includes launching the popular Netflix docu-series Drive to Survive. The show has been credited with helping the sport establish a stronger foothold in the hard-to-crack American market.

So what actually changed? Whitmarsh had something to say on that too.

“I think Formula One has been a little bit arrogant, a little bit inward looking in the past,” he said.

“What it’s really learnt is we have to be relevant to society, to the needs of society, otherwise you just don’t make that connection.”