A lot has changed in Formula 1 in the past twelve months. From Red Bull’s dominance, McLaren has now taken the lead in the Constructors’ Championship, with a title battle that is proving to be extremely tight. However, the last twelve months have been significant also for Aston Martin, which left Brazil a year ago with what, to date, is the last podium achieved by the British team.
Undoubtedly, beyond the standout result in São Paulo, Aston Martin was already experiencing a tough time toward the end of last season. However, that podium, along with the work done behind the scenes on specifications for the 2024 season, gave hope that the team had found the answers it was looking for ahead of winter development.
Indeed, the Silverstone-based team started the season as the stable fifth force, too far behind the top four teams but with a good advantage over the midfield squads. They also achieved some satisfaction, such as the impressive fourth place in Saudi Arabia. However, from that point onward, Aston struggled to meet its development objectives during the season, and twelve months later, that Brazilian podium remains a distant memory.
The last race in São Paulo is perhaps the best representation of what went wrong this season. After completing the first part of the weekend with the Suzuka floor, which had delivered the best results and given drivers confidence in the car, Aston Martin had to revert to the specification introduced in Hungary after two incidents in qualifying. This adjustment, allowed by regulations during sprint weekends, only permitted aerodynamic changes, not mechanical adjustments, under penalty of starting from the pit lane. This worsened the bouncing, making the car even harder to drive.
The bouncing issue was a topic the engineers worked on throughout the season because this annoying phenomenon can have a crucial effect not only on performance but also on driver confidence. It’s no surprise that, on several occasions, the drivers opted to revert to an older floor specification, not only for performance reasons but because the Suzuka specification, introduced in April, remains the one that provides the best sensations in the car.
In Austin with a mix of ideas
To address the bouncing issue, Aston Martin arrived in Austin with an almost experimental floor, a mix of ideas from the two philosophies followed during the year, hoping to extract the best from both concepts. This approach seems reminiscent of last year when, in the final part of the 2023 season, the team brought an experimental floor aimed at developing the 2024 car, which later featured on the AMR24.
“This year, the work on the floor focused on two main philosophies, developing both, and the two specifications also adapt to different circuits. So, as you can see, we switch from one specification to the other,” explained Tom McCullough, Aston Martin’s performance director. “The floor we brought to Austin was a sort of attempt to get the best from both worlds, an experimental understanding for next year.”
In fact, the team viewed the updates brought to Austin more as an experiment, and it was already set aside after the U.S. race to return to another specification. However, this doesn’t mean it was completely discarded, as the team doesn’t rule out testing it again at one of the remaining races, but it remains more of an experimental floor to gather data for next year. After the summer break, Aston often used FP1 sessions as a testing ground for comparative tests, sometimes sacrificing part of the work planned for the weekend since the standings had little left to offer.
For example, in Mexico City, on the car of Drugovich, who had taken part in the rookie session during FP1, rake tests were mounted with a program more focused on data collection for 2025 than on setting up the car for the weekend. “I think, looking at how the development of the AMR25 is going at the moment, which is actually an evolution of the philosophies we’ve adopted, we’re making good progress in the wind tunnel,” Tom McCullough added.
“But it’s a relative game. I think the learning we’ve gained from [Mexico], with all the aerodynamic correlation work and other things we’re doing, fits into this context. We didn’t bring the parts that made the difference, and that’s clearly the goal for the beginning of next year.”
Two philosophies with different strengths
What’s clear from Aston Martin’s perspective is that the two philosophies they worked on this season appear to have different strengths and weaknesses, adapting to different circuits. The experiments in Mexico confirmed that for circuits with many medium and low-speed corners, the Suzuka version was still the most effective, so it was used both in Mexico and São Paulo. This is not a surprise, as even in Azerbaijan and Singapore, Alonso had pushed to use that specification, abandoning the one from Budapest.
After Mexico, Team Principal Mike Krack also explained that the team would choose depending on each race, based on the characteristics of the track: “We have to see what the tracks are like. For example, there are high-speed tracks where we might choose differently compared to Las Vegas, which has many low-speed corners. So I think we’ll decide based on the different characteristics of the tracks.”
Looking back at the season, it’s also true that development didn’t go as hoped, because instead of making progress, the British team fell back into the midfield battle. The package that gave the best results was the Suzuka one, while others were more inconsistent. The package brought to Imola made the car unstable, so it was rejected a few races later when the drivers chose to return to the Japanese specification for the Silverstone GP.
In Budapest, another specification arrived, mainly revised in the front area under the cooling inlets and on the outer edges with reinforcements, but its use was not consistent. In Azerbaijan and Singapore, tracks with many slow corners, as well as in Mexico and Brazil, it was set aside in favor of the Suzuka floor, although the team doesn’t rule out using it again on high-speed tracks, as in Spa and Monza, due to the differing philosophies with varying characteristics.
Aggressive development but little stability
What Aston Martin needs to understand is why, for the second consecutive year, they started the season thinking they could challenge the top teams only to sink into the midfield battle. The development didn’t deliver the expected results but was also very aggressive, perhaps too much so. The numerous specifications, one after the other, prevented the team from finding stability, a theme that McLaren strongly pursued by delaying the development of their third-floor specification to better understand their aerodynamic platform and ensure they were on the right path.
“Performance is relative. This year, we didn’t make the progress we wanted, so relative development hasn’t been good enough. That’s why we’re struggling a bit more to score points on every type of track,” said McCullough. Aston has been one of the teams that brought the most developments throughout the season, with five different floor specifications used during the year, in addition to work on the front wing and sidepods.
Having two philosophies is quite unusual because teams typically rely on a single specification across multiple tracks, often for cost reasons. “It’s not something we’re trying to follow, but we’re very good at analyzing the car’s performance on track, and then we put these data into our optimization and simulation tools. In the end, we have two different car specifications, with strengths and weaknesses, and when we arrive at certain circuits, one of them is better than the other.”
For Aston Martin, this aggressive development may have ultimately been detrimental, as it prevented them from building a stable aerodynamic platform to focus on. “The development direction has always been clear, and that’s crucial, perhaps more than people realize – but we haven’t been able to make the performance strides we expected and give Lance and Fernando a car good enough,” added Mike Krack, the Team Principal.
“There are important lessons to be learned about why this is the case. Perhaps we were a bit too impatient in bringing updates to the track. There’s constant pressure for updates and new things, and sometimes we’ve rushed too much. There’s something to take into account – quality over quantity.” The message is clear: while the 2024 season may end on a low note, there must be progress for 2025, especially since all the tools Aston Martin is now equipping itself with, such as the new simulator and wind tunnel, will be the foundation for trying to win in 2026, when a new regulation will come into effect.
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