The legendary British firm is looking to join the fray as an engine supplier

Formula 1 is in a serious stage of upheaval as the circus descends on Singapore and this latest news fits in perfectly with the tectonic shifts occurring this week. After McLaren officially announcing today that it was dissolving its Honda engine partnership in favour of Renault power units, Aston Martin (speaking to Auto Express) has stipulated that it is considering entering the sport.

Andy Palmer, CEO at Aston Martin, told Auto Express: “We are studying 2021 engine regulation changes and that might provoke us to supply an independent F1 engine if the conditions are appropriate.”

Andy Palmer (left) and Christian Horner (middle) have already initiated a partnership between Aston and Red Bull Andy Palmer (left) and Christian Horner (middle) have already initiated a partnership between Aston and Red Bull

The company already has ties with Aston Martin, seeing as Adrian Newey is designing its halo F1-inspired road car known as the Valkyrie. Aston's winged badge also sits at the nose of the current Red Bull F1 car, showing that there is maybe more of a partnership than we first thought.

With Red Bull soon to end its technical partnership with Renault, it seems like Aston's entry into F1 could be perfectly timed, albeit fraught with potential danger. Manufacturing an F1 engine from scratch has been proven to be extremely challenging in this era of hybrid powertrains, with Honda only hanging onto its place in F1 through a new deal with Toro Rosso.

Christian Horner (Red Bull Racing's Boss) once told Sky Sports: "There will be another announcement coming soon that isn't Porsche or Honda. We have a relationship with a car firm", which surely now pulls things heavily in the direction of an Aston Martin partnership.

A render of a potential Aston Martin F1 entrant by the very talented Sean Bull A render of a potential Aston Martin F1 entrant by the very talented Sean Bull

With Mercedes and Ferrari flying high above the rest of the field in terms of outright grunt, the 2021 regulations may allow a fresh manufacturer like Aston Martin to challenge if it can crack the recipe like the engineers at AMG have done since 2014. Otherwise, we could be about to begin another McLaren-Honda-esque saga. And we all know how that ends up.