If a wannabe Formula 1 giant is on the right track, would it be part-sold and should it be championing a season that ended considerably less competitive than it started as one with ‘no negatives at all’? It’s what you might be asking about Aston Martin, which towards the end of 2023 made a significant announcement: outside investors were coming in for the first time since Lawrence Stroll’s consortium bought the assets of Force India in 2018. The news followed quite intense speculation about Stroll’s intentions for the team, and came at the back of a season in which Aston Martin had genuinely been F1’s most improved team - but had also been on a worrying decline. There had been unsubstantiated rumours for a while that, five years on from creating what would morph into what we now know as Aston Martin, Stroll was looking for a way out. That also coincided with questions about his son Lance’s future after a rough run through the middle of the season. But the message from Aston Martin is