Former F1 team boss: Aston 'going nowhere' under Stroll

Former F1 team boss Colin Kolles, who once managed the very outfit now owned by Lawrence Stroll, has criticized the Canadian's leadership at Aston Martin, insisting the Silverstone-based team is "going nowhere" fast.

Stroll led a consortium of investors that rescued Force India in the summer of 2018, saving the team and its faithful employees from extinction.

But from the outset, the fashion mogul, who has proven his business credentials beyond doubt, has proclaimed his ambitions to transform the Aston Martin-branded mid-field contender into a "highly competitive" and winning F1 powerhouse.

Last year, Stroll set out a five-year plan to reach those lofty targets, with a massive investment into a new factory, the hiring of key personnel and the Canadian billionaire's ever-present assurance representing the backbone of Aston's aggressive programme.

But so far, apart from the emerald gloss of its cars, the team's shine has been dim, a lack of brightness that Kolles reckons is directly linked to Stroll's management style.

"You have a team owner who thinks he is the team boss, who knows everything better and thinks he should put his son up front with all his might," said the former Midland and Spyker managing director and HRT team boss, speaking to German broadcaster Sport1.

"The fish always stinks from the head. I can see the racing team going nowhere.

"As long as Mr. Whitmarsh is in charge and Mr. Stroll doesn't see that he should be staying at home and only giving budgetary guidelines and letting people work who know their stuff and get the right people to lead the team, it's never going to work."

• Read also: Aston Martin exit obvious when responsibilities taken away - Szafnauer

Taking into account the final rounds of 2021, it's been four races since Aston Martin has earned itself a top-ten finish, with its AMR22 new-generation car performing in the lower tier of F1's midfield in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

With zero points on the board, Aston currently shares the bottom of F1's Constructors standings with Williams, the team with which Lance Stroll entered F1 in 2017.

The 23-year-old Canadian's seat with the Grove-based outfit was lavishly paid for by his father who also funded a comprehensive Williams testing programme for his son ahead of his F1 debut.

But Stroll Sr's involvement with the British outfit went beyond his role as a mere benefactor, with the billionaire believed to have played a pivotal role at the time in convincing deputy-team principal Claire Williams to part ways with veteran technical director Pat Symonds and to bring back then Mercedes tech boss Paddy Lowe, a move that initiated Williams' catastrophic and enduring downward spiral.

Great F1 teams do not happen by accident, but Stroll's instinct for recruiting key personnel was questioned anew after the arrival at Aston last year of former top McLaren man Martin Whitmarsh.

The Briton's credentials were not disputed but his nomination as Group CEO of Aston Martin Performance Technologies inevitably watered down the authority of long-standing team boss Otmar Szafnauer.

After guiding Team Silverstone for more than a decade through thick and thin, the American predictably left Aston at the start of the year. But Szafnauer's robust management skills, void of controversy and hassle over the years, were immediately picked up and put to good use by Alpine.

"Everybody's got an owner, and everyone's got a boss," said Szafnauer ahead of the start of the 2022 season. "So that bit of it isn't difficult. But the owner and boss that I had before [Force India team owner Vijay Mallya] didn't micromanage at all, completely left me to it.

"When you have two Popes, it's just not right."

Szafnauer was replaced at Aston Martin by former BMW motorsport boss Mike Krack, an enrollment that incidentally didn't impress former F1 driver and current DTM boss Gerhard Berger who witnessed first hand the German's achievements - or lack of - in his series with BMW.

"Let's see what can be done, but when I watched what was done in DTM, I just don't see the way forward for Aston Martin with him," a candid Berger told the media last month in Bahrain.

Whether Stroll's stewardship at Aston Martin will prove successful or hopeless, only time will tell.

Granted it's early days and Stroll's plan must be given the time to play out. But for Kolles, the signs of a resounding failure are already written all over the team.

"If someone thinks they'll get into Formula 1 and be in the front ranks overnight, then it won't work that quickly," concluded the Romanian.

"You have to have a plan. You could have had the plan that new rules would come in 2022 and work on them.

"However, Mr. Stroll decided a few years ago that it should now be done quickly, no matter what the cost.

"I used to tell (investors) if you take a million of any currency and throw it on a fire, the money will burn up just as quickly as in Formula 1 if you don't know what you're doing.

"And that is the case that is happening at Aston Martin."

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