The purchase campaign at Aston Martin continues. Lawrence Stroll’s team has indeed snatched the head of aerodynamics Eric Blandin from Mercedes.
The engineer of the Brackley team, currently still under contract with Mercedes, however, is not expected to take up service before October 2022 when the gardening period will be concluded. Blandin’s signing, however, is a surprise hit as he is the first key figure that Aston Martin takes away from the team providing power units and gearboxes.
An Aston spokesperson told Motorsport.com: “We confirm Eric Blandin will be working for the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team next year. The exact start date is not yet confirmed. His transition from Mercedes to our team will take place in a friendly way ”.
Blandin began his career in the Fondmetal Technologies wind tunnel in 1998 and then moved to Jaguar Racing as an aerodynamicist in 2002. The French engineer then remained permanently in Milton Keynes even when the team changed its name to Red Bull Racing. only to leave the team at the end of 2009.
Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
In that period he worked with Dan Fallows, another prestigious stroke scored by Aston Martin. In fact, Stroll’s team snatched the coach from Red Bull to grant him the post of technical director for next season.
Blandin also has a background at Ferrari, having worked for the Maranello team in 2010 before moving to Mercedes in May 2011. In September 2017, he was promoted by the Brackley team as aerodynamic leader.
As mentioned, Blandin is Stroll’s latest market coup to strengthen Aston Martin’s technical structure. In addition to Dan Fallows, the Canadian billionaire has already hired Luca Furbatto and the head of technical operations Andrew Alessi from Red Bull.
Otmar Szafnauer said: “We are not slowing down our recruitment campaign and at the moment we have hired more than 150 people and will continue to do so”.
“If we want to aim for the title within 4 years we must have human resources, infrastructures and an efficient wind tunnel just like the top teams and we are moving in this direction”.
Szafnauer then underlined how Luca Furbatto will soon begin his adventure in Aston Martin after completing the gardening period.
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