Please welcome the executive chairman of Aston Martin Aramco Formula 1 team, Lawrence Stroll.

Good evening everyone and welcome.

It is my absolute pleasure to be here tonight in Saudi Arabia,
home of our title partner Aramco and our principal partner Madden.

We're delighted to be here at Ithra, a center for world culture in front of our valued partners, members of the media and our fans.

This is the first ever works Aston Martin Aramco car developed by our Silverstone team together with HONDA,
Valvalene and our title partner and host this evening Aramco.

As executive chairman, I am proud of what this moment represents
because what defines this team is not only what happens on track.

Formula 1 demands courage and rewards those willing to build something extraordinary and remain unwavering in their ambition.

Thank you for being part of our journey and for sharing this moment with us.

Welcome and please enjoy the launch.

Yeah, it was good. Good evening, everyone.
Uh, yeah, it was nice.
Just uh some downtime, relaxing.
Um, just recharging the batteries and getting ready for the season.

And Fernando, it was a pretty short winter, wasn't it, this year?

Yeah. Hello, everyone.
Uh it was quite well the shortest winter I think in in the last couple of years.
But uh yeah enough I think we we are willing to,
…to go in the car and and go racing.

All of it.

I mean like you said just everything coming together the new set of regulations the collaboration with Honda and driving an Adrian newey design car is pretty exciting for sure.

Um yeah, a very proud moment for sure.
You know, we've been uh I've been racing against Adrian for the whole of my career and now finally I can uh drive one of his cars and uh as Lance said, I think um huge challenge this year with the new set of regulations and being a works team, you know, having Honda in our side uh Aramco and the challenge that the sustainable fuels has been uh you know, for the 2026 regulations.
So yeah, very proud, you know, to be part of this family and this organization and uh yeah, looking forward to succeed together.

Yeah, for sure.
I mean, uh, you know, when I think back to the team we were in, you know, 2021, um, and when you see everything that's happened in Silverstone today, it's the transformation is incredible.
Um, the ambition, you know, we have as a team.
We want to win, uh, we want to fight for race wins and championships in the future, and I think it's, um, just very exciting and and motivating for everyone to be a part of that.

Um, absolutely. I think uh I I feel this is a very important moment for the team.
You know, it's the very first time we are a works team.
You know, we have uh you know all the new pieces you know um coming together you know we have the factory now completed, we have the wind tunnel, we have a Honda uh and we have the new set of regulations so everything combines in a very important season for for the team.
And I think I feel that is the beginning of something important in the next coming years.
So yeah I'm as I said very proud very excited to be part of the project
And uh we are really looking forward to work uh flat out to to have the success that I think this team deserves in the in the near future.

Yeah. Yes.
I think it's going to be very interesting because it's a season that you know I think it doesn't I mean always it matters where you start in Australia but I think I feel the second part of the season is going to be even more important than the first half you know if uh you understand your weakness on the car you identify early enough that you can work on those and I think that's why the bar test and uh and the first couple of races will dictate a little bit the the path for for the rest of the season.
So we are very very focused on development on the car and you yeah uh I think as a driver you know it gives you the feeling that you will play an important part on on through the season and you yeah looking forward.

Yeah, I mean, I think the beautiful part of, you know, being a a driver, I mean, something I enjoy from the challenge over the years is it never gets easier.
It only gets different.
And um, you know, each race weekend from the last 10 years that I've I've raced in the sport has its unique challenges.
And um, you know and and it um yeah forces you to to get better and and and and just improve as a driver and challenge your strengths and weaknesses every single weekend in different ways.
And um yeah, I mean that's um you know why I wake up in the morning and I and I I go racing is um is to push myself to challenge myself to get better every day, every weekend.
And um you know this is uh a a new set of regulations and it's just another opportunity to test myself and I think you know the whole team how good we can be.

Great stuff.
Well for the moment thank you very much gentlemen.
We will be back with you a little later but for now please give our Aston Martin drivers a round of applause.
Lance Strong and Fernando Alonzo. [applause]

Now, clearly this team is on an incredible journey.
Now, it's time to see their next chapter.
It's time to reveal the AMR 26 livery.

What a beautiful moment and a stunning livery that features satin paint for the very first time on an Aston Martin.
So that's a glimpse to the into the look for 2026. Now, let's hear from the man who will lead the team into this 2026 season.
Please welcome to the stage, team principal of Aston Martin, Aramco Formula 1 team, Adrien Newey. [applause]

Can I start by just saying I've seen many launches.
I think that was outstanding.
It really was.

Two spelts.

It really made me feel proud to be part of Aramco of at Honda Aston Martin the the music by Hansen.
I mean it was absolutely stunning.

So to answer your question I'll now get to your answer your question.
Yeah I mean it's it's great to see the car as it will be racing.
Um, the car we ran briefly at Barcelona for a day and a half was all black, partly in truth because we didn't have time to paint it.
Um, and and that was fabulous.
Funny enough, Lawrence and I when it first pulled out of the garage with Lance driving, we were standing next to each other in the pit lane.
And I think we were both quite close to having a tear in our eye because it's been a a long emotional p journey of passion and a lot of hard work to get it to Barcelona.
um to see the car now paired with the livery as it will be wearing racing with is of course how everybody will see it.
So it's a very important part.

There can I see air the answer is no I can't um but I try to do my best to very to visualize what the flow is and what it's likely to be nowadays of course uh with CFD computational fluid dynamics then that's a fabulous tool for actually being able to stare at a computer screen and understand what's going on and it's unlike the old days where it was wind tunnel and bits smoke and flow and wool tufts.
Now you can see it in much more detail, but it's that only tells you what it's doing at that point in time.
It's then using the clues from that to try to go forwards and develop the next idea.

We all knew what the regulations were. They were published.
So I just try to sit back and think okay what just think from first principles, what are these regulations, what could be a possible solution came up with a philosophy um and then when I started at the team on on the 2nd of March then kind of discussed that philosophy with the aerodynamicists and the designers at at Aston Martin.
We all agreed that that seemed a a viable proposal and that's what we've followed ever since.

Whenever there's a big regulatione change, there's always huge opportunities.
It's um who spots what and which one is the ultimate proves to be the correct solution.
Only time will tell.
So you saw that in 2022 when the last big regulation chain change came out.
Then start of 2022 there's a lot of different interpretation solutions.
In the end, one tended to turned out to be the correct or the most appropriate one and that's what by the let's say the start of 24 everybody just started to converge on.

I think this year is going there's likely to be a lot of a huge amount of development.
I would imagine that for many teams including to an extent ourselves the car that they ran in Barcel in the Barcelona preseason will be a fair bit different to the car that they actually race in Melbourne.
And that pace I'm sure will continue through the season.

I think overtakings there's been a lot made about ease of overtaking and that was the intention of the 22 regulation change.
It if you talk to the drivers, it helped a little bit initially.
By the end of last season, they didn't feel it was any better than it was in 21.
It could be something similar here.

I think first of all, it's a lovely building to work in.
Um, it has a good atmosphere. Uh it's a pleasant environment because let's face it, you know, a lot of us have been spending doing 12-hour days if not more over the last months.
So having a pleasant feeling to the room you're working in is very important.
The layout of the building is very conducive to uh everybody working together.
It's all very centralized. And the facilities are second to none as as Lawrence's um Lawrence's kind of vision and investment into this building has given us without doubt the best facilities in Formula 1 and that's a tremendous asset but it's clearly only one part of the equation.
The equally important or second part is the personnel that populate that building and how they work together and that's the bit that I feel we're making huge strides on at the moment.

All right.
Well, Adrian, just stay here for the moment because earlier on Lawrence mentioned that tonight is all about collaboration and shared ambition. So to discuss this further, we'd like to invite a world-class world-class suite of partners to join us on the stage to continue continue the conversation.

So please welcome representing title partner Aramco, executive vice president of technology and in innovation, Ahmed Alcoeta and representing technical partner HONDA Racing Corporation, Koji Watanabe. and representing official lubricant partner Valvalene, chief executive officer of global operations, Jamal Muasha. [applause]

Adrian, if you'd like to join me here.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Lovely to see you.
Thank you for joining us this evening.

If I can start with you, Adrian, to set the scene, though, you've mentioned the team has an unwavering intention.
Your strategic partnerships are clear evidence of that with the team, with HONDA, with Aramco and with Valvalene.
How important has that collaboration been in laying the foundations not just for success now, but for the future as well?

Well, it's really challenging and uh emot.
while battery capacity remains almost unchanged.
So we have fewer energy generation sources.
So energy management is will be the key for the new power unit.
Also um sustainable fuel is also the new challenge for us.
So we are really working hard and closely together with Aramco.

Well um our engineer often fly to Silverstone and also the engineer from the Martin also working very hard in our factory in Japan.
So um distance itself is not challenge but maybe flight cost [laughter] is a little bit dis advantage for us in compared to the European manufacturers but also a time difference is sometimes good favor for us and we if we send a question to Silverstone and at the final time of the working day in Japan but uh next day in the morning we already received the answer.
So it's kind of 24 hours uh development.
So really happy to work together with.

Yeah. So we're here at Ithra.
It's the King Abdazi's Center for World Culture, also known as Ithra, of course.
Um, you know, this place is where we cultivate learning, we cultivate creativity, we cultivate problem solving.
So, it's really the perfect place to have the uh announcement and the launch of the F1 car.
If you look at the architecture here, incredible combination of form and function.
And that really is an inspiring uh architecture that uh which really reflects similar form and function that we've seen in this beautiful car today.

Yeah, so we've been working closely with Austin Martin since 2022 on motorsport technologies and with Formula 1, Formula 2, and Formula 3 as well as F1 Academy.
We've been supplying lowcarbon fuels all in preparation for the 2026 Formula 1 season.
So, we've been able to work together with Honda and Austin Martin to develop these lowest lowcarbon fuels and we are looking forward to the introduction of ProForce Plus uh our 100% FIA compliant sustainable fuel this season.
And from this season's racing and from the testing, we're hoping to collect a lot of data that we'll be able to use to perfect future formulations and future wins hopefully.

Yeah, Valvaline, as you said, it's 160 years uh this year.
Um, and we've been innovating in performance and motorsports since the inception of the industry.
Uh, when you think about it, you know, the that legacy of being the first brand and the legacy of taking our deep technical knowledge and marrying it with the advanced technologies that are needed in engines, not just in motorsports, but in cars every day.
That's what's the same.
Um, what we're excited about and what we're proud of is is really what's different.
And that is you know when you look at the scale of the business and the brand um over the last few years it's rapidly grown and uh you know this innovative products and outstanding service that we provide is in now more more consumers more customers in more parts of the world.
But then on the Formula 1 side to be able to come back after nearly 40 years and be a lubricant supplier it you know provides us a great opportunity at a time when Formula 1 you know is reaching you know peak popularity um continues to grow.
You also have, you know, these new technology challenges that are coming along.
So for us, you know, what's different is as the as the team has evolved to the new Honda power unit, it's to be able to develop a solution and work side by side with the teams to come up with something that was uh going to maximize performance.
And so, you know, embedding ourselves with with the with the great teams here uh to to support this magnificent car.
That's where the teams had to really work together.
And I think Adrianne said it well which is that co-engineering approach um is really critical to success in motorsports.

Yeah, motor oil is critical to the protection and performance of the engine which then means you know how is the car actually going to perform on the track.
And so what's critical in a Formula 1 engine in particular is you have it manages and impacts power efficiency, reliability and durability.
And so we have to take all those into consideration.
And so as we went out um as we set out and working with the teams, you know, our focus was really on how do we reduce friction of the rapid moving parts of the engine while also at the same time taking heat away from those rapid moving parts to uh take that away from the power unit.
And so that's a critical part that we had to do.
When you look at that, in addition to the other critical factor with a motor oil is it has to drive consistency.
Um, so for the race teams, they want to make sure that as they're preparing for a race weekend that the, you know, the the consistency of how the motor is going to perform.
It impacts race strategy.
It impacts, you know, the the performance of the engine that then impacts, you know, the drivability, the, you know, the calibration that they have.
It just it there's a lot that has to go into it that the motor oil is a critical part of that.
So, you know, it's important that, you know, we we design something can maximize performance,
but at the same time, you know, we're also really competitive.
That's what a motor role has to do.
Um, and so we want to win and so we want to push the limits of science and physics uh to maximize and create a competitive advantage for for the team.

I think we all do.
We all want to win.
Definitely. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here tonight.
If I can invite you to retake your seats, Adrian, thank you very much for your time as well. [applause]

Yeah, looks good.
We love the green and, you know, I think, is a little bit, yeah, some differences from the last couple of years, with the matte color which, you know, I hope all our fans will will love and, yeah, we will drive as fast as we can.

Yeah, it looks good.
If it's fast, it's going to look even better.
So, yeah, we have to wait and see.
But, yeah, the car is, you know, very small this year, very compact.
And just excited to get out there.

Yeah, just uh let's go racing.
You know, I mean, it's always a very exciting time of the year when you see everything come together, all the hard work of everyone back at Silverstone.
Just the whole project coming together and it's just going to be it's going to be nice to to get going.

Yeah, that you know we will give it all.
You know we have a an incredible support all around the world.
We have a great partners.
We have incredible facilities.
We have the determination to do well.
And I think this is the the beginning of something really nice for Aston Martin.
So I think the fans will enjoy.
Please support us and yeah and see you around the world.