[jfxavier]

The name Aston Martin is set to return to F1 next season, with a report claiming Force India are to be re-branded as Aston Martin Racing.

Aston Martin has had a brief stint in Formula 1 during the 1959 season as they competed in four races and returned for another two grands prix in 1960 before exiting the sport.

Earlier this year there were talks that they were on the verge of a comeback and in talks with Red Bull with the team set to run Mercedes engines, but nothing came of it.

It now seems they are close to signing a deal with Force India with Autosport reporting “Aston Martin wants to have a presence in F1 to take on sportscar rivals McLaren and Ferrari on track as well as off”.

Mercedes, which owns a five percent stake in Aston Martin, has already given the deal the go-ahead and it seems Force India will race as Aston Martin Racing in 2016.

“If tomorrow someone comes and offers me a good sum of money for title sponsorship, I’ll seek the team name,” Force India team principal Vijay Mallya told Autosport.

“If the marque comes along and I have to change the team name, I have to look at what it does for the team in terms of profile.

“It’s premature to talk about it now, but we’re talking.

“Nothing is done until it’s done. I don’t like to count my chickens until they are hatched.”

Although there is still no official word from the Force India and Aston Martin camps, a spokesperson for the Silverstone-based company says their “future remains very bright”.

“We continue to have a number of discussions about 2016 and beyond with both our current and new partners who see a commercial value in a relationship with Force India,” he said.

“When the time is right we will make suitable announcements in conjunction with our commercial partners. The future remains very bright for the team.”

Force India will have to apply to Formula One’s commercial rights holder, to have the change in name approved.

Source : http://beta.autosport.com/news/repor...on-martin-deal

[deetjohn]

A bit of mixed bag for us Indians I guess. Nonetheless, a great brand to be added to the sport.

Other details:

Originally Posted by AutoSport

Alongside the team name change, it is understood the livery will become blue and gold as part of a link-up with sponsor Johnnie Walker.

Force India's engine supplier Mercedes, which owns five per cent of Aston Martin, is said to have given its blessing to the title change.

Aston tried for a tie-up with Red Bull as well as held talks with Williams and Force India, before ultimately deciding to focus on the latter.

Aston Martin Mercedes will sound a bit weird.

[batterylow]

“If tomorrow someone comes and offers me a good sum of money for title sponsorship, I’ll seek the team name,” Force India team principal Vijay Mallya told Autosport.

“If the marque comes along and I have to change the team name, I have to look at what it does for the team in terms of profile.

“It’s premature to talk about it now, but we’re talking.

“Nothing is done until it’s done. I don’t like to count my chickens until they are hatched.”

Source

From the looks of it only the team name will be changed, I think the Sahara Force India name will be dropped in favor of Aston Martin Racing. The only change is in the marque sponsor.

[GTO]

Considering how cash-strapped Mallya & Sahara are, they'll accept even a one-sided deal. Aston Martin isn't exactly rich in cash either, so I think they might get it cheap.

This is still at the negotiating stage and honestly, I don't know how much sense it makes for Aston Martin. In Europe, the brand sold a paltry 1,500 cars last year. That's just way too small.

Of course, Bernie will offer his blessings as he'd be all too keen to have such a brand back in Formula 1. Mercedes - which owns a small part of Aston Martin - might also indulge in some arm twisting at Force India to make it happen?

[stanjohn123]

I actually like the name "Force India" more. Knowing in what situation VM is in right now, I don't think he will reject a good deal of money just for a name change. Too bad for patriotic Indians.

Currently I guess only VM's team has a country name, no other team has it.

[Doge]

Wow, participating in a motorsport that's quite expensive, boring and is losing its popularity is a bit stupid if you're out of a little money. Aston needs to pull its socks up!

[GTO]

Originally Posted by stanjohn123

Too bad for patriotic Indians.

But there is nothing Indian about Force India, except for the name. And even that was in place only for marketing reasons. The R&D center is abroad, the engineers are not Indian, no drivers are and there's isn't a nut or bolt in the car that's Indian.

I don't think any patriotic Indians are going gaga over Force India. And I don't think they're going to lose sleep over the name change either.

[khoj]

Tail fin logo changed from Smirnoff to Cavalli

[shyn]

This article gives a better insight into the whole story-

It is not news to suggest that Aston Martin cannot really afford to get into Formula 1. The glamorous Britsh sports car firm, now under the control of the Italian private equity firm InvestIndustrial, controlled by financier Andrea Bonomi, believes that Aston Martin could (and should) be a rival to the likes of Ferrari and Porsche. The company produces around 3,500 cars a year (about half the total of Ferrari), but Bonomi believes that this can be increased to 7,500 by 2018, with a range of new models. In an effort to achieve this goal, Aston Martin has gone into an alliance with Mercedes-Benz, which will provide engines and expertise to help Aston expand its range of cars.
The project will obviously require a great deal of marketing, but the budget is small and while the firm would like to be in Formula 1, the best it can hope for is a relatively small technical partnership with an F1 team. There have been conversations with a number of teams in recent months but with limited cash little progress has been made. However, the sexy image that Aston enjoys, created largely by the lengthy association with the fictional British secret agent James Bond, in the spy novels of Ian Fleming, can be leveraged if other companies want to be associated with the Aston Martin name.
The word in Mexico City was that there will soon be an announcement regarding a deal that will see the Force India team rebranded as Aston Martin. This may sound rather unlikely, but it seems that a rather unique deal is being put together to achieve this goal. It stems from the $2.7 billion purchase of India's United Spirits Ltd (USL) by the Diageo company in 2013. United Spirits was previously owned by Vijay Mallya, the owner of Force India, who was forced to sell USL after he ran into financial trouble as a result of the collapse of his disastrous Kingfisher Airlines. He negotiated a deal that resulted in Diageo taking control of USL, but he remained as chairman. However, after the deal went through, Diageo looked at the financial situation of the business and asked Mallya to stand down, because it said it had "lost confidence" in him as a result of what it claims were transactions that diverted money from USL into other Mallya companies, including Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya refused to stand down and a legal fight has begun to get him out. Ironically, as this has been developing, Diageo's Smirnoff brand has been sponsoring Mallya's F1 team, and enjoying the benefits of Force India's good performances.

At the same time, the huge B2B benefits from Diageo's Johnnie Walker sponsorship of McLaren are now lessening and the team has not been enjoying good performance and the word is that the company has now decided to finish its relationship with the Woking team, but to increase its activities in F1, in an official supplier role, and as a sponsor. The obvious choice for a partner team is Force India, but Diageo does not want to sponsor a team with the Force India name. Thus, it seems, the company is looking to kill two birds with one stone and to promote its products, while at the same time solving the dispute with Mallya. The exact details are not yet clear, but it seems to be related to a loan of $135 million that was made to Mallya's company Watson Ltd by Standard Chartered Bank, for which Diageo acted as a guarantor, in exchange for Mallya agreeing to release USL shares. Diageo has recently agreed to pay that debt, subject to the transfer of the shares, but it seems that as part of the settlement Diageo may become involved in Mallya's F1 team. He has been looking to find ways to refinance the team because his partner Roy Sahara is in jail and is not going to be involved in F1 any longer. But a change of name is needed in order for a deal to go ahead. Enter Aston Martin, a sexy name.
Thus, expect to see a Johnnie Walker-sponsored, Aston Martin-branded team in the future. Mallya's interest in F1 seems to be waning, so it may be that he will take the opportunity to bow out of the sport. As to the detailed ownership and management, we will have to wait and see, but there is no reason that the team will change at operational level.

Source: https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2015...p-force-india/

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by shyn

This article gives a better insight into the whole story

Just goes to show that the 'sport' side of F1 is just a side-benefit of the 'financial' side of F1.

[D33-PAC]

Originally Posted by shyn

Mallya's interest in F1 seems to be waning, so it may be that he will take the opportunity to bow out of the sport.

This isn't true. His financial interest in the team is waning. 0:35

https://youtu.be/JeGvLtsEkFE?t=35

Notice how he shows up at every race, it takes real interest to do that. And he is a very competent operator, let's not forget where Spyker was and the kind of development and podium achieving capacity FI enjoyed under Mallya.


Keeping all bias aside and speaking strictly from an observation of facts and events, I think Mallya is a very competent F1 team operator and if I was running AM I would let Mallya run the show.

[khoj]

Watching the race live and the entire livery on Force India cars has changed.

New sponsors on board Cavalli, Telmex, Telcel, HYPE & few others apart from the older NEC, Sahara & UB brands.

[Raikkonen]

If what I am thinking is how it is panning out - that would cement VJ as a very canny operator.

Joining the dots, I think the bone of contention several months ago that called for VM ouster from Diageo was the $130M loan that he lent to his subsidiary companies. Diageo alleged that VM did not disclose these inter party transactions during their due diligence to buy United Spirits. VM obviously refused the resign citing the agreement Diageo signed that they would keep him as chairman of US until 2018. With the board meeting due on Nov 24, they could still ask the shareholders to pass a resolution to oust VM. So all in all, VM may (theoretically) owe $130M to Diageo to prevent the loss of his Chairmanship at USL.

It is no secret that Mclaren are going backwards and that Johhnie Walker (Diageo Brand) has been sponsoring them for ages. Diageo are also active sponsors of Force India - with the Smirnoff Brand. As Force India are moving up ranks and fighting for positions mid field, we are seeing more and more Force India cars on TV. This means a more better return from marketing for Diageo through Smirnoff Brand in comparison to the value they are getting from Mclaren.

Enter Aston Martin, who are actually getting bugger all marketing with their involvement at WEC. At the same time, they cannot afford several tens of millions in F1 sponsorship as their road car division itself in not in good financial shape.

Now (my hunch) it appears that VM has convinced Diageo to bring over their Johnnie Walker brand (along with Smirnoff) as a major sponsor to Force India - as an avenue to cover for the loans that he (again theoretically) owe to Diageo. The deal could be something like $20M (????) each for 5 years of advertising on Force India. Diageo might have thought that (a) they would anyway not recover the $130M owed by Mallya and (b) get more TV advertising/marketing in comparison to Mclaren considering the upward trajectory of the Force India team. This would have made them consider active sponsorship to FI team. The rumoured involvement of Aston Martin's (am sure they would not bring that kind of sponsorship to be a title sponsor) would be cleverly leveraged by Mallya to get Diageo's nod on sponsorship. In turn Aston Martin would be convinced of the additional revenue coming in from Diageo (as well as other Mexican Companies) and a neatly packaged business case will be presented on the potential future of the team. So Mallya will get two major sponsorship and may have found a away not to pay the $130M AND keep his position as chairman of USL.

This is pure fiction on my side, having been following F1 since 1994. But I would not be surprised if some of the above is true.

Interesting that Force India was valued at $160 M in 2014, with revenues of $75M and Spend of $100M. Since then, they have signed more sponsors and have also moved up the rankings. They might be breaking even now in terms of revenue and spend. Lotus last year was $265 M - so we can expect FI to be valued something similar now.

[Hatari]

More on ^
FORMULA ONE: EXCLUSIVE – DIAGEO CLAIM FORCE INDIA F1 TEAM OWNERSHIP
http://jwgrandprix.com/2015/12/04/fo...eam-ownership/

[fz_rider]

Aston Martin has joined Red Bull as an "innovation partner".
So this in effect nullifies the chances of joining hands with Force India.