Aston Martin is seeking to bolster its finances by selling the naming rights to its Formula 1 team for £50 million to its majority shareholder, Lawrence Stroll, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The move comes as the British manufacturer warned that its 2025 earnings would fall short of market expectations, marking its fifth profit warning since September 2024. While the deal requires formal shareholder approval, it has already secured backing from investors controlling more than 50% of the company.
Lawrence Stroll, a Canadian businessman with a net worth of $3.9 billion as of March 2024, according to Forbes, first invested in Aston Martin in 2020, leading a Yew Tree Investments consortium that injected £182 million into the company for a 16.7% stake. Stroll’s business background includes significant investments in fashion brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, contributing to their global expansion.
The financial pressures on Aston Martin contrast with some of the ambitions for its Formula 1 team. The 2026 season will see the team begin a new power unit partnership with Honda and marks the first season with Adrian Newey as team principal and managing technical partner. However, pre-season testing in Bahrain revealed challenges, with the team experiencing issues during testing.
Honda issued a statement on February 20th detailing a battery-related problem during testing with Fernando Alonso, which impacted their planned testing schedule. “Since then, we have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura,” the statement read. “Due to this and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today’s run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints.” Aston Martin ultimately concluded its testing day approximately two hours before the scheduled end, completing only a limited number of laps.
Adrian Hallmark, Aston Martin’s chief executive officer, highlighted macroeconomic headwinds impacting the company in October 2025, specifically citing “the sustained impact of US tariffs and weak demand in China.”