Remember Giancarlo Fisichella’s Pole position for Force India at the 2009 Belgium GP? That drive set the tone for the Silverstone-based team as the midfield overachievers that gave the top teams a run for their money once in a while. But with Lawrence Stroll’s takeover, rebranding of Aston Martin, and vision of winning the championship, Lawrence Barretto suggests that the team needs to let go of the midfield mindset to start using the full potential of the upcoming $250 Million facility.

Force India was known as the team that got the most out of its limited resources. With Lawrence Stroll’s investigation and the budget cap, the team was expected to further flourish. It has improved in the last couple of years, but not as much as Lawrence Stroll would like to meet his vision of making the team a world championship contender and winner. 

Lawrence Stroll invested $250 Million into a new factory and wind tunnel for the team. Part of the factory is online now with the wind tunnel set to come online this year. However, a lot of people on the team have been there since the Force India days, and need to let go of the mentality of a midfield team and need to start thinking like a big team. Only then will they be able to achieve the vision of becoming Champions. 

Lawrence Barretto, speaking on the Race F1 podcast said, “I feel they are in the early days, put all the building blocks in place. I feel the key thing for that team is whether or not they can ever get out of the Jordan/Force India midfield mindset and really accept that they are a big team and operate in that way. I think we’ve seen examples of those growing pains last year when they brought upgrades mid-season that didn’t deliver. With a big team, that doesn’t seem to happen.”

Talking about how a change in culture is essential to maximizing the most out of the new resources, he added, “They key is just the culture, and if they can change that, they’ve got all the people and facilities in place, they’ve got the infrastructure in place to make those steps”

We can hear it in Fernando Alonso’s words that he trusts the team’s project and vision, and that was the reason why he joined the team and has now decided to extend as well. 

Aston Martin’s Investments and Partnership appealed to Fernando Alonso

Pedro De La Rosa in a recent podcast talked about how the new Aston Martin project was the reason why he decided to join the team. Alonso has a similar reason as well, seeing the magnitude of the changes that Lawrence Stroll is bringing to the team to make the team a World Championship contender. After signing the contract extension, Alonso talked about the Honda partnership and the new wind tunnel as appealing reasons that made him stay.

Fernando Alonso said, “I was very clear to Aston in the first conversations that the appealing part of this project is everything that we are building. It was the new campus last year, it’s going to be the wind tunnel this year, it’s going be the new regulations in 2026, and Honda coming as a partner. I think that was for me a must, to enter the new regulations with a new project, with a new wind tunnel, and also with Honda as a partner,  it was something for me that it was very, very important.”

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Will Aston Martin be able to capitalize on the 2026 regulations and do what Mercedes did when the 2014 regulations were brought in?