Szafnauer on gap to competition: 'Increase number of employees to 800'

The Aston Martin team has ambitious plans for the future. Team boss Otmar Szafnauer says he wants to increase the number of employees at the team to 800.

The plan of Aston Martin

This is part of the plan to bridge the gap with the competition. Before the new factory opens next year, the team wants to hire more than 250 new people. Szafnauer explains the plans to the official F1 website.

"We’ve added significantly the amount of people we have since we were Force India. The new factory is on track, we have started building already, and it’s a big, big programme to recruit even further," he said.

The Aston Martin team boss continued: "We are at about 535 people now and we will get to about the region of 800 or whatever the right size is under the cost cap and we are strategically working on that now and trying to recruit likeminded individuals that want to come work for Aston Martin Racing and go racing at the highest level. The recruitment process is going well."

Aston Martin still has a long way to go

Aston Martin is currently sixth in the championship behind rivals AlphaTauri. With the team expansion, they hope to close the gap. Szafnauer stressed that there is still a long way to go: "There is a bigger gap to the teams in front than to the teams behind and we have to do a good job for the rest of the season, bring some more upgrades, understand the car better, get the drivers even more comfortable and fight as hard as we can to finish as high as possible in the midfield," he said. "It won’t be easy, even for fifth, but we will do the best we can."

The gap to AlphaTauri is currently just two points. The Triple Header of races is coming up and could cause the entire standings to be shaken up.