So far this season, Aston Martin has shown the smallest improvements compared to the first five races of last year. In Saudi Arabia, it was the only team that failed to improve its qualifying time in 2024. This decline stems from a development path that had already failed to deliver expected results in past years.
In the meantime, the British team has continued to expand with the goal of becoming a top team in the future, not only by hiring key figures from other teams but also by investing in new infrastructure, such as a next-generation simulator and a modern wind tunnel. These elements help paint a clearer picture of the team’s current struggles, even though other rebuilding teams—like Williams—currently seem more competitive.
The midfield battle is extremely tight, and a few tenths can cost several grid positions, as Aston Martin is also experiencing. As reported earlier this week, the AMR25 suffers from a lack of aerodynamic load. The team has decided to focus development on creating more “usable” downforce, with a wider operating window, rather than chasing peaks of raw performance, which caused major issues last season.
From that point of view, there have been improvements: the car is easier to drive, one of the main goals strongly requested by the drivers after the AMR24 proved nervous and difficult to handle. However, this increased driveability has come at the expense of outright performance, where engineers have not yet made a clear step forward.
The standings are clear: in the first five races, Aston Martin has scored only ten points, all by Lance Stroll, equivalent to a quarter of last year’s haul over the same period. Andy Cowell, the new Team Principal and CEO, admitted there is a bitter aftertaste within the team regarding the season’s start, though he ruled out any sense of panic.
Cowell emphasized that the real objective is to fully learn how to exploit the new factory resources, such as the wind tunnel and simulation tools, in preparation for the major regulatory changes coming in 2026. After all, as this is the final year of the current rules cycle, it’s clear that efforts are already aimed at the future.
“The grid is extremely compact, so the difference between the front and the back is not particularly large. However, we want to be at the front, and we’re not—so we’re not happy. Are we satisfied with our current position? No, we weren’t last year either,” Andy Cowell said ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.
In reality, the AMR25 was developed in the old Mercedes wind tunnel, the same one Aston Martin used for all its past projects, meaning the team had a solid understanding of how that facility worked. So, the transition does not explain all of the difficulties at the start of this season. However, changing all the infrastructure and needing to compare data across multiple tunnels—even during validation—can cause confusion.
“We are investing heavily in the future: we want to deeply understand the potential of the new facilities. We are not panicking about this year’s car, which we are using as a learning platform to better manage the new wind tunnel, simulation tools, internal information flow, and, most importantly, to focus on what really matters: improving lap time.”
While Aston Martin cannot afford to completely sacrifice 2025, the AMR25 is being used as a real laboratory—not so much to score short-term points, but to align data between the three main pillars of development: wind tunnel, CFD, and track.
The priority, then, is the medium to long term. With this in mind, the team will continue using Friday practice sessions to test experimental solutions on both cars, rather than focusing solely on optimizing each individual race weekend—a strategy already employed at the end of last season, especially in rookie sessions.
“Every race is an opportunity to gather valuable data. Right now, collecting information is more important to us than scoring points. If we can align the virtual world, the wind tunnel, and the track, then we’ll be much more competitive in the future and less vulnerable to performance dips.”
It’s no coincidence that Cowell specifically mentioned the facilities as one of the key factors for making a step forward—especially looking ahead—and it’s also where Adrian Newey, the new star of the technical group, is focusing in his first months at Aston Martin. Competitiveness in 2026 will inevitably depend on what is learned this year—not so much in terms of car performance, but in mastering the tools needed to develop it.
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