Ahead of the Russian Grand Prix, the former McLaren boss’s return to F1 was confir𓃲med with Aston Martin, where he will head up a newly-established c💯ompany, Aston Martin Performance Technologies.

The 63-year-old has not been involved in F1 since his departure from McLaren in 2014 but he brings a wealth of world championship-w✅inning experience having spent 25 years at Woking.

Whitmarsh’s arrival will have no impact on team principal and CEO Otmar Szafnauer, who will continue to have responsibility for the day-to-day runnin🐷g of the F1 operation.

Instead, Whitmarsh will take on an all-encompassing role as head of gro♑up technologies, utilising the experience he has gathered in recent years working as the CEO of the Ineos America’s Cup team.

As𓂃ton Martin’s newly-created division has been inspired by set-ups at McLaren and Williams and will work in a similar manner by inc🅷orporating F1 technology and expertise to other areas of their respective businesses.

“Forꦬ me it doesn’t change anything, I rema🦋in as team principal and CEO,” Szafnauer explained in an interview with Sky Sports on Friday in Sochi.

“Martin is brought in as group CEO, so we’re obviously now going to have a group of companies, very much like McLaren hav♛e done with their applied technologies. We want to🍌 do the same and extract some of the technology and IP that’s created and developed for F1 and applied elsewhere.

“Martin has a great wealth of experience doing that over the last seven years. He’s 𝔍been boat 𝔍racing and has also started a company that was borne out of the technology that was developed for boat racing.

“So he’s i🥂deal to help us to grow th🌠at area of the business and he’ll be the group CEO of that.”

“Martin will report to the chairman and reporting into Martin will be all the group companies undeꦍrneath which Formula 1 will be one of those group companies,” Szafnaeur explained.

Stroll described Whitmarsh as “the ideal person” to lead Aston Marti😼n to success in F1, while Whitmarsh himself was left convinced by the Silverstone-based outfit’s ambitious project.

"Lawrence intends Aston Martin to win F1 world championships, plain and simple, and I would not have joined him in that endeavour unless I was utterly convinced that it was an entirely achievable aim,” Whitmarsh said𝓡.

"I know what it takes to win in F1 and, inspired by Lawrence's leadership and backed by the skill, passion and resolve of the workforce, I intend to d꧙o whatever I can to make sure that our team becomes the winning operation that Lawrence is determined that it should be.”

Aston Martin also recently formally confirmed that four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll will remain with the team for🔜 2022.

Stroll’s plan to transform Aston Martin into a world championship-contending F1 team includes the construction of a state-of-the-art factory complete wi🔜th a brand-new wind tunnel and simulator which will cost between £150-£200m and broke ground earlier this month.

Aston Martin has 🌌also signed several key figures to restructure its technical department amid an aggressive recruitment drive that has been headlined by the capture of current Red Bull aero head Dan Fallows to become its new technical director.

“The ambitions are big and it takes time,” Szafnauer said. “If you look back, Red Bu൩ll took four years from the time they bought Jaguar to start winning. Mercedes - they took four years too and they bought a cha꧒mpionship-winning team in Brawn.

“So it does⛄ take time to build the infrastructure, get the right people in place and make sure that glue that holds us all together is right too. And then hopefully in four or five ♚years time we’ll be knocking on the door of a championship.”