MPH: Christian Horner's already talking to Aston Martin about F1 return

Recall that last week in this column I said, “we can probably discount the Aston Martin rumours. That is Lawrence Stroll‘s team…” and, “control and autonomy would be so essential to him now. That means a very significant shareholding…” and “So unless Lawrence Stroll plans on selling up before seeing the fruits of the huge investment he’s made, with the team potentially just on the verge of fantastic success, then we can probably discount Aston Martin being Christian Horner’s destination.”

Well not so fast there, Hughes. There is more to this story than was apparent on face value. It is now our understanding that discussions of some sort have taken place between Stroll and Horner. It is all about the soaring valuation of F1 teams at the moment and how, as a consequence, this is the perfect time for Stroll to bring in new investors. Stroll would not be looking to sell before his team achieved success. But he would probably not be averse to generating substantial revenue by surrendering part of the team, perhaps as a segue to selling up more fully once his goals have been achieved. If Horner can bring those investors to the team, he could potentially be the de facto successor to Stroll some way down the line. In the meantime he could have a significant role there.

This is just one scenario among many which are being considered by both Stroll and Horner and their plans will not necessarily converge. The Aston Martin F1 team, with its new factory, Adrian Newey in technical charge and Honda as a partner, is on paper an extremely attractive investment and team sources confirm there are discussions with ‘Triple A level investors’ and as such there may not be an opportunity for Horner to bring his backers on board.