“Lawrence Stroll calls the DB12 the first car developed essentially on his watch”
Since we last met I have driven the new Aston Martin DB12 in the south of France but because it’s such an important car to the company, it will take six weeks to get the world’s mainstream, automotive and lifestyle press (plus, doubtless, a smattering of the influencers you get these days who’ll say whatever you damn well like about a new car so long as you pay them enough) through its elegant doors. Which means I can’t write about it until the last has been in it – allowing us all to publish at the same time – so it’ll be next month before my review is published.
But while there I had a chat with Lawrence Stroll. He’s about as easy an interview as a hack could wish to have, insofar as I reckon he was 10 minutes in before I even had to open my mouth. Actually, this approach can be immensely frustrating as media-trained CEOs spout fluffy company lines aiming to smother any more interesting avenues of enquiry you might have. Not Stroll. It is fair to say he is not blind to his achievements at Aston and elsewhere, but what he talks about is not only interesting, but useful. He can even do self-deprecation of a certain kind – “if you want to become a multi-millionaire try starting as a multi-billionaire and buy a Formula 1 team…”
So far as the F1 team is concerned, he came with a seven-year plan at the end of which it would be worthy of winning world championships. Three years in, his aim for this season was to finish fourth in the constructors’, matching the performance of the team in its final year as Racing Point in 2020. In fact, after Monaco it was P2, a single point ahead of Mercedes-AMG. If it can end up in that position – which will require his son Lance to stay close to Fernando Alonso all season – the team will be two years ahead of Stroll’s schedule.
By his estimation he needed three things to get the team where he wanted: the right staff both in and out of the car which he reckons he now has, a new factory (with accompanying wind tunnel) which the team will be moving into around the time you read this, and an exclusive works engine deal, secured from Honda from the start of the 2026 season. It would be a braver man than I who’d bet he’s not going to get there.
On the road car side Stroll calls the DB12 the first car whose development happened essentially on his watch, though the rapturously received DBX707 was finished after he arrived. So it is reasonable for expectations to be high. But the existence of another future product now seems in doubt.
Two CEOs
