Season Results: Aston Martin – all the news from Formula 1 2022

For the fourth time in five years, Aston Martin / Racing Point / Force India finished the season in seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship – despite multimillion-dollar investment, the arrival of a four-time world champion and the best engineers from other teams.

After achieving business success, Canadian billionaire Lawrence Sheldon Strulovich set an even more ambitious goal – to make his son Lance the champion of Formula 1 in his own team. After making money from investments in fashion brands, he bought out Force India in 2018 and in 2020 became the owner of the Aston Martin brand, renamed the team and invested heavily in its development.

In the coming months, Silverstone is preparing to open a new Aston Martin base – the first in the UK since the launch of the McLaren technology center in Woking. This construction is rumored to have greatly revived the construction market in Northamptonshire, which has not seen such large-scale projects for a long time.

There is such an approach – “I see the goal, I do not notice the obstacles” – and Lawrence moved year after year in accordance with his ideas, but even now the goal is exactly the same as it was five years ago. As they say “Formula 1 can make you a millionaire…if you were a billionaire” but jokes aside. Lawrence is one of the respected people in the paddock. Everyone knows that he is serious here and for a long time they remain calm, because as long as Aston Martin does not threaten the leading positions in any way, there is nothing to worry about.

In the spring of 2022, most teams stopped presenting and limited themselves to publishing renders on social networks, but Aston Martin held a full-fledged ceremony at the Aston Martin Lagonda factory in Gaydon, Great Britain. The development of the car was carried out by technical director Andy Green, Sebastian Vettel and the owner’s son, Lance Stroll, got behind the wheel again.

Vettel has repeatedly said he considered leaving in 2021, but Lawrence convinced him to stay and spend the first season with the team after the regulations change. Seb stayed, but frankly the season started and he showed his best qualities in the last races, ending his career in Formula 1.

Everything looked good in testing, but as the season started Aston Martin was found to lack speed and downforce – and Sebastian Vettel, who missed the first two grands prix due to Covid-19, was replaced by Nico Hulkenberg.

The team only took its first points in the fourth stage – in Imola both riders finished in the top ten. Due to the typical build-up problems of 2022, Aston Martin increased the height of the suspension, losing almost a second per lap, and while trying to solve this problem, the rivals continued. With a limited budget, it was almost impossible to make a return, which predetermined the outcome of the season.

You can’t say that the team was standing still – in the first half of the season, new items were prepared for almost every stage, but they had no effect. Like many, Aston Martin’s results in 2022 depended on the tires being able to perform in specific conditions. Usually it didn’t work.

The team was the only one to break in all sets of tires ahead of time in practice – so it was possible to make them work somehow, albeit at a loss of resources. And they started, and in the race Vettel and Stroll used already rolled tires, which usually drove one lap.

Aston Martin’s most successful race was in Singapore, where Stroll finished sixth and Vettel eighth, earning the team 12 points to climb to seventh in the Constructors’ Championship. The same number of points at the end of the season – 55 – earned in Alfa Romeo, but they were sixth by Valtteri Bottas’ fifth place at Imola.

The best moment of the season for Aston Martin was without a doubt the farewell to Sebastian Vettel at the end of the season, which was very warm and dignified. There are few places where outgoing riders are rewarded with such honors, but the team gave their best and did everything right.

Fernando Alonso will become Stroll’s partner next year. The Spaniard always speaks and acts as he sees fit and avoids unnecessary political correctness, so Lance will have a hard time. In 2022 he earned half as many points as the downright relaxed Vettel, so Fernando should dominate in this pair for the next season.

However, politics is a delicate matter. Lance’s future in the team is guaranteed unless he himself declines, and Fernando will become the oldest driver in Formula 1 in 2023. The Spaniard is considering retirement – and has already said he would like to stay at Aston Martin, where Lawrence liberally pays the bills while setting the highest goals. And high goals come at a price.

But so far – again only seventh place.