Szafnauer still in charge of Aston F1, but will report to Whitmarsh

Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer remains at the helm of the manufacturer's F1 outfit but will report to new group CEO Martin Whitmarsh in the future.

Aston Martin announced last month that it had recruited Whitmarsh to lead the company's new Aston Martin Performances Technologies unit, an entity that will have oversight on the group's F1 activities.

Whitmarsh enjoyed a 25-year tenure in F1 with McLaren that came to an end in 2014, after which the Briton held an executive role with Olympic yachtsman Ben Ainslie's America's Cup challenge.

The 63-year-old's new role with Aston Martin will see him leverage the F1's team's engineering and technical expertise for the benefit of a wide variety of key industry sectors.

Whitmarsh will therefore have no involvement in the day-to-day running of Aston Martin F1 which remains entrusted to Szafnauer.

"The F1 side will remain under my leadership and remit," said the American, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"So I'll still be team principal and CEO. Martin will be group CEO, with the F1 side reporting through him.

"So I guess the only thing that hasn't been planned is how much of his time, because he's got the entire group, does he spend on each one of those entities?

"I would imagine at the beginning most of his time will be spent growing the Aston Martin Performance Technologies area, which is where his most recent expertise lies, and not focus so much on F1.

"But the bit that hasn't been planned is how much of his time will be spent where."

• Read also: Horner crushes rumors of Newey move to Aston Martin

Szafnauer says Whitmarsh's vast F1 experience and management expertise will help Aston deploy its engineering assets towards projects located outside of the world of racing, following an approach similar to that embraced in the past by McLaren with its Applied Technologies subsidiary.

"He was there at McLaren when they started doing that, so he's got that experience, and he can lead us to shortcuts in doing that," said Szafnauer.

"He's also had seven years now of boat racing experience, including starting a new company that is taking technologies from boat racing and moving that technology into I think cargo ships.

"And it's an applied technology type business, technology transfer. He's got good experience in that, and he'll help us shortcut the development of our performance technology business."

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