Kicking off the bidding for next season, Aston Martin Racing joins the ranks of Model F1 hopefuls.

Close, but no cigar

After a failed attempt at joining this year’s grid, the team returns with plans to join next season. Although the attempt failed, the bid gathered enough support in just 24 hours, to be the 3rd choice after Stefan GP and Haas, who secured the two coveted spots on this year’s grid.

The team now hopes to spend the season to gather enough support to get the call to race. “We’re going about this as if it’s a regular season”, says Aston Martin Co-Team Principal /u/jeppe96. “We’ll be running sims for all the races to get into the flow, as well as releasing a livery, being an active part of the community and of course recruiting more members for Aston Martin.”

Surprise bid

When the failed bid was entered at the beginning of the current season, it was a surprise to /u/jeppe96. “I had already let McLaren know that I would be leaving to start my own team at the end of the season. I’ve been an Aston fan in WEC and GT racing for a long time, and when the opportunity to create a team presented itself, I just knew I had to take it. I was really surprised when another bid was made, but also happy that I wasn’t the only one with the idea to bring an Aston team to MF1”, he says. “After the bid failed, I contacted /u/rustyiesty and suggested we try again in a joint bid, and here we are.”

Interest to join growing

Although the team currently only has two active members, a few people from other teams have already shown interest in joining Aston Martin. “I won’t go into specifics, but one or two people have let us know that they would be interested in joining, should the bid prove successful”, says /u/jeppe96, who emphasizes that in order to guarantee success, the team will need to focus heavily on recruitment. “We can’t run a successful team with just two people. So we definitely need more.”