Aston Martin will provide the safety and medical cars at more than half of the Formula 1 races next season.
The agreement, which is yet to be formally announced but which has been confirmed by Racefans.net, will result in Aston Martin taking over the duties from part-shareholder Mercedes at 12 of the planned 23 races next season.
In a statement, the British firm said: "It's Aston Martin's policy not to comment on speculation. As a manufacturer, we're extremely excited and focused on our imminent return to Formula 1 as a full works team, for the first time in more than 60 years, in 2021."
It's understood that the decision on which manufacturer will operate at which race will be dictated by how active Aston Martin is in the particular market. It's expected to pick countries where it has a larger market share, although Mercedes may hold sway at some of the races where both have significant interests, such as in the US and China.
While it's not clear which road car from Aston Martin’s portfolio will act as safety car, a race-derived Aston Martin Vantage is said to be currently favourite for the role. The medical car will be a DBX, which uses the same 4.0-litre V8 engine as the current AMG GT R cars that act as safety and medical cars.
Daimler, which owns Mercedes, recently took a 20% shareholding in Aston Martin.
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I'm baffled as to why neither
I'm baffled as to why neither Ferrari or McLaren provide the F1 safety cars as both actually make very fast hyper cars. Surely something like a lightweight hypercar that can actually lap at a more reasonable pace makes more sense than some heavy weight GT car.
One more F1 season for Mercedes?
I expect 2021 will be the last F1 season we see any Mercedes safety cars and indeed Mercedes competing as a F1 team. It makes little sense for a car group to fund 2 works teams in a hugely expensive sport so I suspect Daimler will put all its eggs in the Aston Martin basket for 2022.