2023-10-12 07:47:24
After the very tough race in Qatar in which Fernando Alonso ended up with a burned back, Aston Martin is in full battle with McLaren for fourth place in the Constructors’ World Championship and Fernando Alonso is fourth in the drivers’ championship and fighting with Hamilton for third place. square. In this context, and with five grand prix remaining (United States, Mexico, Sao Paulo, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi), the Silverstone team knows that they must take a step forward to defend their positions. And while the first improvements are expected to arrive in Austin, rumors about the future of the team are spreading in the paddock.
A million dollar operation
According to “F1insider”, Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll could sell his racing team to Saudi Arabia with Fernando Alonso as a key part of the operation.
The aforementioned media assures that the main shareholder of the sports car manufacturer Aston Martin and owner of the Formula 1 team of the same name, would be thinking of selling his team to a newly founded Saudi state fund. The state oil company Aramco, which is already the main sponsor of the team, will lead the negotiations for the sale of the fund created to further promote the sport in the desert state. The purchase price is estimated at around 800 million euros.
The team did not want to confirm the news, although Stroll himself admits that there have been “approaches” and emphasizes that Formula 1 is a sport and “a business that is on fire.”
The key to this operation would be in Stroll junior himself (24 years old): Fernando Alonso’s teammate (42) no longer has aspirations in Formula 1 because the double world champion has shown him the limits of his potential and Stroll It has been greatly surpassed. In addition, Claire-Anne, Stroll’s mother, is pushing, according to paddock sources, for her son to end his career in motorsport after some accidents this year.
Formula 1, in the spotlight of Saudi Arabia
This is not the first time that these rumors linking the green team with the petrodollar business have gained strength. Saudi Arabia wants to become a World Sports power, not only in football – where they want to compete for the 2034 World Cup – but also in Formula 1, where they already have the Jeddah GP. Golf, Formula 1 and football are among its main investment focuses.
For this reason, last January the news broke that they would be willing to make a significant investment that would allow Aston Martin to develop its headquarters in Saudi territory. A project that would allow him to have another renowned ambassador to achieve his final objectives, which would be none other than Fernando Alonso.
The Saudis would be delighted to have the Asturian in sponsorship and advertising tasks as they have already agreed with footballers such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Benzema.
The plan includes teams such as Aston Martin or McLaren moving to the city of Neom, a territory projected in the province of Tabuk that will become the first smart city in the world. Neom would also function as a tourist destination. A project with which the Arab country wants to imitate the Qatar model that led it to the celebration of the last World Cup and has become a top tourist destination.
Currently, seven of the 10 Formula 1 teams have bases in England but, if Saudi Arabia succeeds in its mission, Mercedes, Red Bull, Alpine, McLaren, Aston Martin, Haas and Williams could choose to move.
It seems unlikely that Aston Martin will be willing to move when it has invested 200 million pounds (234.3 million euros) in its new headquarters that will be located in Northamptonshire (United Kingdom) and will have a revolutionary Wind tunnel. However, everything seems possible with money, as Arab countries have been demonstrating in recent years.
This is Neom, the city that wants to take Alonso
Neom is a city of the future designed by Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, which will have an area similar to that of Belgium and will be located at the northern end of the Red Sea coast belonging to the Arab country. The announced budget for the construction of the more than 26,000 square meters projected is 500,000 million dollars (about 443,000 million euros) and it is expected to be completed in 2025. Its main attraction lies in its concept of sustainability, adaptability and technology to the welfare service. Their taxis will be flying but perhaps this is not the most striking thing about a project that is almost difficult to imagine.
NEOM will be a special economic city, with its own civil and tax laws, and Western social customs. The main objectives are to attract foreign investment from multinational companies, diversify the oil-dependent Saudi economy, create a free market space and home to millionaires, “a land for free and stress-free people; a start-up the size of a country: a blank page on which to write the new era of human progress,” says a promotional video for the project. According to the website, the 16 sectors of energy, mobility, water, biotechnology, food, manufacturing, communication, entertainment and fashion, technology, tourism, sports, services, health and well-being, education, and habitability will generate 100 billion dollars a year .
Mechanism to create clouds and an artificial moon!
The Wall Street Journal had access to 2,300 documents that reveal some of the surprising luxuries that the futuristic city will have. Among them are flying cars, holograms, a theme park of robot dinosaurs and genetic editing in the Jurassic Park style, technologies and infrastructures never seen before, hotels, resorts and luxury restaurants, mechanisms that create clouds to cause precipitation in arid areas, beaches with glow-in-the-dark sand, and even an artificial moon.
Another goal sought by the project is to make NEOM the safest city on the planet, through state-of-the-art surveillance systems that include drones, automated cameras, facial and biometric recognition machines and an AI capable of reporting crimes without the need for citizens to They have to report them. Finally, the city will be an ecological center of great projection, basing its power system solely on solar and wind energy obtained with plates and mills, since they have an entire desert to install them.
Will Neom and the millions serve to convince Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso?
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