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What was the deciding factor for Lawrence Stroll to buy Force India
- GPblog.com
The ailing Force India was rescued from ruin years ago by Lawrence Stroll through a takeover. The team changed its name to Racing Point and is now known as Aston Martin. Stroll Sr. explained what was the deciding factor in taking over the F1 team.
Prior to the takeover, Stroll spoke a lot with Chase Carey, the then CEO of Liberty Media. The future of the sport was discussed and in those conversations it became clear that there would be a budget cap in the pinnacle of motorsport. According to Lawrence Stroll, this was ultimately very important in his consideration, because without a budget cap he would have let the opportunity pass him by.
Great performances with little money
In addition, Stroll did not want to buy a team that was stuck at the rear of Formula 1 . Force India were actually the perfect option, because the formation always managed to find a place in the midfield with limited resources. In fact, the team finished fourth in the Constructors' Championship two years in a row. And this while working with very low budgets.
Force India had a budget of 90 million British pounds and employed only 400 people. If we compare this with Mercedes, then the German racing stable of Toto Wolff and co. was spending almost four times (332 million) as much at the time. Moreover, there were 900 staff under contract. However, Force India was very competitive in Formula 1 and this attracted the Stroll family.
"They were doing more with less staff than other teams, so it was an incredible opportunity to build on an already strong foundation. We didn't start from scratch," Stroll said in conversation with GP Racing magazine .
Racing Point led by Stroll
Halfway through 2018, Force India was renamed Racing Point. All points (59 points) accumulated up to the Belgian Grand Prix that year were lost by the team due to the name change. Had Racing Point been allowed to keep those points it would have finished fifth in the World Championship that year. Now the team had to make do with seventh place.
One year Racing Point finished in a disappointing seventh place, but in 2020 they were able to revenge themselves with a neat P4. That could even have been a third place if the British formation had not had a fifteen World Cup points deduction for copying parts from Mercedes. 2021 under the Aston Martin banner was by far the most disappointing season since its takeover by the Lawrence consortium.