British sportscar marque Aston Martin has returned to the Formula One motor-racing world championship under a deal with Red Bull Racing team.
The agreement, which will lead to the two parties collaborating to create a new road car, will feature Aston Martin’s name appearing on the rear of the Red Bull team's sidepods while its iconic logo will be placed on the nose of the cars from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix this weekend.
Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey will work with Aston Martin chief creative officer Marek Reichman on a ‘hypercar’ with the project name ‘AM-RB 001’.
The length of the agreement was not disclosed.
Aston Martin briefly featured in F1 in 1959 and 1960, but had been linked with a return to the championship over recent months. The company held talks with a number of teams, including Williams and Force India, about a possible collaboration.
“Formula One offers the ultimate global stage to build wider awareness of the Aston Martin brand,” Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer said. “However, this partnership will deliver even more than that when the hypercar that Aston Martin and Adrian Newey are in the process of developing hits the road. These are exciting times for Aston Martin and arriving hot on the heels of our DB11 launch earlier this month, this new partnership underlines that our brand really is racing again.”