Nearly two decades removed from his $635 million purchase of the New York Jets, Woody Johnson arrived in Britain as U.S. ambassador in 2017. For the next four years, London became his base as he built relationships across British business, culture and sport. That connection to British sport eventually became an investment.

 In 2025, Johnson agreed to buy John Textor’s 43% stake in Crystal Palace for about £190 million, a deal he completed in July. It took the longtime NFL owner into the Premier League and added one of English football’s most recognizable clubs to his sporting portfolio. Now, Johnson is taking that portfolio into Formula 1.

“Jets owner Woody Johnson has acquired a strategic stake in Aston Martin Aramco and will join the team’s board as Vice Chairman, per the team announcement. The NFL and F1 worlds collide again,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter captioned an Instagram post.

Johnson has acquired a minority stake in the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, with the exact size of his holding and the financial terms of the deal not disclosed. He joins the board as vice chairman with immediate effect. However, the move does not put Johnson in charge of the racing operation.

Aston Martin said his focus will be the team’s commercial growth, particularly in the United States, while Lawrence Stroll will remain executive chairman and controlling shareholder and continue to manage the company. That distinction matters because Johnson is not simply buying into an F1 team as a passive investor.

Aston Martin is bringing in someone whose existing sports interests span the NFL and Premier League, along with the business relationships that come with them. The team said his involvement could unlock “valuable commercial synergies” across the global sports landscape. For Johnson, entering such investments isn’t new.

He is a billionaire and heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Apart from being the Principal Owner & Chairman of the New York Jets, Johnson is a shareholder of Crystal Palace F.C. (a South London-based soccer club that competes in the English Premier League). His sports investments also put the scale of the move into perspective.

Johnson bought the Jets for $635 million in 2000; Sportico now values the franchise at about $10.35 billion, and then there was the Crystal Palace investment, which followed in 2025, when he paid roughly $254 million for his 43% stake. Aston Martin, meanwhile, is itself a very different asset from the team Johnson bought into 26 years ago.

Sportico valued the F1 team at about $3 billion in its latest valuation, making it the fifth-most valuable team on its list. Stroll has also sold minority stakes to outside investors in recent years as the value of F1 teams has climbed. However, Johnson’s investment in a brand like the Aston Martin Formula One team is not simply a matter of his strong camaraderie with Lawrence Stroll.

The Jets chairman is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2017–2021), and Johnson says that period gave him a deeper appreciation of both the Aston Martin brand and Stroll’s plans for the team.

“During my time as U.S. Ambassador to the UK, I have developed a deep appreciation for Aston Martin’s rich history, as well as Lawrence Stroll’s strategic vision and entrepreneurial spirit,” Johnson said in a statement. “I am excited to partner with him and contribute to the continued development of the team, with the ambition of building an organisation capable of competing at the very highest level of the sport.

“We also share a commitment to growing the fanbase in the United States and introducing even more fans to the excitement of Formula 1.”

Stroll, on the other hand, appeared quite excited to welcome Johnson to the board of directors.

“I am extremely happy to welcome Woody to the Aston Martin family. His experience, passion and investment further strengthen our position as we enter the next phase of our competitive journey. His deep appreciation for our brand, combined with his commitment to innovation and commercial opportunity, makes him an ideal partner as we look to the future,” Stroll said in a statement.

That commercial opportunity is particularly important in the United States, where F1 has spent the past several years turning itself from a niche motorsport property into a much larger sports and entertainment business. Average U.S. television viewership per race reached 1.3 million in 2025, up from 554,000 in 2018, according to Reuters.

For Aston Martin, however, the timing of Johnson’s arrival is about more than its American ambitions. The team is in the middle of a much bigger reset, and 2026 has so far been anything but smooth.

The new regulations brought Honda in as Aston Martin’s works power-unit partner, while Adrian Newey took on the Team Principal role for the new era. But the team started the season at the back of the field, with both its chassis and Honda’s new power unit falling short of expectations. Newey later acknowledged that Aston Martin did not begin serious work on its 2026 car until March 2025, leaving it months behind rivals.

The result was a painful first half of the season. Aston Martin entered the summer break 10th in the Constructors’ Championship with just one point, scored by Fernando Alonso in Monaco. The team then brought a major 16-part upgrade package to Hungary, where it moved ahead of Cadillac and Williams in qualifying and showed its first clear signs of progress.

Honda is now due to bring an updated power unit to this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, adding another piece to the team’s attempt to recover from its difficult start.

That makes Johnson’s role an interesting one. He is arriving not after Aston Martin has reached the top of the F1 order, but while Stroll’s long-term project is still trying to get there, on the track and in the American market.