James Bond, the British Secret Service agent, has been dropped from more than a dozen Aston Martin different in so many Hollywood movies. The iconic DB5 debuted in ‘Goldfinger’ (1964) with Sean Connery and still has cameos in more recent films, although it gave way to other models. For the last film yet to be released, ‘No time to die’ (2021), only the aforementioned DB5 plus the DBS Superleggera and the V8 Vantage appear in the trailer.
Aston Martin is one of the world’s great sports car manufacturers, founded in a London workshop in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, associated with a film icon but without motoring tradition in Formula 1. Until 2021, when for the second time in its history they will have a World Championship team absorbing the previous Racing Point, from Silverstone, and with Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll as drivers. A four-time champion, plus the son of team owner Lawrence Stroll, to set the standard british racing green at the pinnacle of racing. The project promises to the point that Toto Wolff, the boss and owner of Mercedes F1, has bought shares of the brand.
Aston Martin’s first steps in the motorsport they were linked to British mountain races. Already in 1922 they built their first two cars with grand prix specifications thinking of competing in the Isle of Man TT with a 1,486cc engine that developed 55 hp, weighed 750 kilos and reached 136 km / h. They didn’t make it to that race, but they did make it to the French GP in the summer. They would achieve several podiums later, but the death of one of their pilots, Count Zborowski, during a race in 1924 (at the wheel of another car, a fatality to which the drivers of the time were accustomed), It provided a hiatus in racing for Aston Martin.
Le Mans y F1
In the 50s he acquired the David Brown company and aimed at endurance racing and the newly created Formula 1. He was successful in the first, they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 with the DBR1, at the wheel the also cinematographic Carroll Shelby ( Matt Damon plays him in ‘Le Mans 66’) and Roy Salvadori. They tried it at the grand prix with less luck: they debuted with a podium in the 1957 BRDC Trophy, at Silverstone, an F1 race that did not belong to the championship, but his only round of the World Cup came in the 1959 season, without points, because the design of the DBR4, with the engine in the front, was outdated in front of the advances of the time. So they left quickly, after the 1960 campaign, with two sixth places as the best result.
Apart from some other Le Mans stints and two prototypes in the 70s and 80s, Aston Martin did not lavish itself on racing until more recent years, with the emergence of GTs in endurance events. In F1, his only subsequent approach was commercial, as Red Bull’s title sponsor until last year, which included the Valkyrie project, a spectacular hypercar designed by Adrian Newey. Until now, with his full entry into the Great Circus, As the company’s CEO Lawrence Stroll sums up: “The return of the Aston Martin name to F1, with such a dynamic history in the sport, is exciting for all of us involved in this great British manufacturer. The grid is the right place for Aston Martin is where the brand should be. ” James Bond can drive an F1 if he wants, or is in a hurry, on his next adventure.
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