Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer says a potential deal with Aston Martin is not completely dead.
Aston Martin showed an interest in Force India last season, with the potential major sponsorship deal involving a rebranding of the team. However, Aston Martin opted to delay a decision until January and has since cooled its interest in F1 amid uncertainty regarding the 2017 regulations.
While Szafnauer said early in January that no deal would happen this year, he told F1i the door is not closed on the idea being revisited.
“No it’s not done, never say never," Szafnauer said when asked about the Aston Martin deal. "We’ll continue to talk to them. They’re friendly with us and you don’t know what the future brings so it’s not completely done.”
And Szafnauer says Force India has been able to increase its budget off the back of its fifth-place finish in the constructors' championship last year despite the Aston Martin deal not coming to fruition.
“Well there was some good news recently where we’ve done a five-year deal with Smirnoff. That along with the increased performance of last year finishing fifth underpinned the team financially.
"And we’ve added more sponsors - we’ve added a Mexican bank for example - and some of the other sponsors we’ve had we’ve increased their sponsorship with the team, we’ve increased the level at which they sponsor us. So all that together bodes well for that discretionary spend.”
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