Aston Martin's road car ties to Mercedes unchanged by Honda F1 deal

(Reuters) - Aston Martin's Formula One engine partnership with Honda from 2026 will not affect ties to Mercedes on the road car side, according to the team's CEO of performance technologies Martin Whitmarsh.

Mercedes-Benz has a roughly 9.7% stake in the British sportscar maker famed for its association with fictional secret agent James Bond.

The German carmaker is also currently the Formula One team's engine provider.

The Silverstone-based Formula One team is separate from the road car company but owned by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, whose Yew Tree consortium is Aston Martin Lagonda's biggest shareholder.

"Aston Martin Lagonda is a public company, one of its shareholders is Mercedes-Benz and a significant proportion of its power units for the road cars comes from Mercedes-Benz," Whitmarsh told reporters.

"That is planned to continue.

"We are purely focused on racing activities and we've chosen to partner Honda. We will be absolutely focused on winning in Formula One with Honda and Aston Martin Lagonda will continue to develop its own strategy."

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Toby Davis)