The current Aston Martin Formula one team began life back in 1991 when Eddie Jordan decided to set up the ‘Jordan Grand Prix’ team. Throughout its various iterations, the Silverstone based squad have never been front running challengers although in its various iterations there have been five Grand Prix victories.
The latest was in the topsy turvy year that was dominated by Covid-19, where at the Sakhir Grand Prix Sergio Perez took a comfortable victory, the first for the team since Brazil 2003, when Eddie Jordan was in charge.
Now Aston Martin with hundreds of millions dollars invested in their Silverstone HQ, billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll is pulling to all the stops to see his team rival the likes of McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Yet as the new wind tunnel came online earlier this year there were big correlation issues between the drawing board and what was happening in the real world of the track.
Newey predicts 2 years before results
Newey believes the problem lies with the team’s brand new simulator, which came online last year and is hampering the development of both this year’s car and next season’s too. Newey was asked in Monaco whether he felt Aston Martin had what it needed to fight to the championship come the big new rule change in 2026.
“I think it is fair to say that some of our tools are weak, particularly the driver in the loop simulator. It needs a lot of work because it’s not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool. Not having that is a limitation,” Newey revealed. “But we’ve just got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be. But that’s probably a two-year project in truth.”
This may be shocking news to Aston’s owner Lawrence Stroll, who’s hundreds of millions spent improving the team’s facilities looks to be far from delivering results any tine soon. The problem as outlined by the F1 guru car designer is both short term and long term. “It is a handicap, but difficult to say how much,” he said. “Driver in the loop simulators are used in two ways.
“One as a research tool, when you’re looking at how you’re going to design the following year’s car, and how you’re going to put all the tools together to better model it. Then the other of course is how you develop the set-up of the car, typically, especially for given race weekends.
“So we’re going to be a bit blind on that for some time. We have just got to try to use experience and best judgement. How successful that will be, time will tell.”
Aston Martin organisational structures found wanting
Posting his thoughts on the Aston Martin F1 website, Newey further offered insight into the challenges both he and Aston Martin face in the coming days and months. “You can have the best motion system in the world, but if you don’t have the modelling to go with it, and correlation with the aero model, correlation with the tyre model and so on, it won’t be of any use,” he said.
Simply out, whilst the wind tunnel is state of the art in F1 land, this tool is not as important as those which pull together both real life and simulated data. “The factory is probably the best factory in F1, and the wind tunnel is arguably the best wind tunnel in F1,” new adds. “Wind tunnels nowadays are quite complicated tools, so it’s still in a development process. Productivity is not quite there, because we are still kind of working through it.
“But ultimately, wind tunnels are a bit like engine dynos. You need them and a really good wind tunnel, of course, you’d rather have that compared to a not so good wind tunnel. But ultimately, it’s not really the thing that makes the difference. It’s the human element. It’s the design you put into it.”
Of more concern is the team of designers Newey inherited when joining Aston in March this year. He believes the previous organisational structure in some way isolated them from working better as a team. “There’s a lot of individually very, very good people,” he explained. “We just need to try to get them working together perhaps in a slightly better organised way.
Fernando eyes third title, but at 45???
“I think that’s simply a result of, obviously, the roots of the team is Jordan, and that became Force India, and that became Racing Point. As such, it was always a small but slightly over performing team. But now, in a very short space of time, it is a very big team that in truth has been underperforming this year.
“I think a lot of that is now just getting everyone to settle down and learn how to extract the most out of the individuals,” Newey concluded.
The problems outlined by Adria Newey are not the work of a moment to solve and having heard his suggestion it might be 2027 by the time Aston Martin has a suite of design tools all working together, this will frustrate both Fernando Alonso and Lawrence Stroll in equal measures.
Now 43 years of age, Alonso committed himself to Aston Martin in the hope Stroll’s billions would turn the team around. Yet now in his third year with the Silverstone based squad, he is hearing his next shot at a world title may only be possible when the Spaniard has turned 45 years of age.
More urgently Aston Martin must decide on who they have partner alongside Fernando in Canada, just over a week from now. Lance Stroll has according to the team suffered a recurrence of pain from his cycling accident in 2023 and was forced to withdraw on the eve of the Spanish GP. Whether the team bosses son will be fit for his home race in Canada is anyone’s guess, though at present the team’s reserve drivers remain entered for the Le Mans 24 hour race – the same weekend.
Red Bull in P4 has a silver lining
Red Bull Racing were formed from the ashes of the Ford owned Jaguar F1 Racing team in 2005 and despite the recruitment of Adrian Newey spent four years before they claimed a top four finish in the constructors’ championship. Since that second place in 2009, Red Bull have just once finished the year in P4 or below.
Their worst result since of fourth was in 2015 when Daniel Ricciardo and Russian Danny Kvyat were driving for the team, which that season was battling with an underpowered Renault power unit.
Now the six times world champions find themselves languishing in P4 after the recent Spanish Grand Prix, where Yuki Tsunoda failed to score and Verstappen suffering a penalty post the chequered flag, was classified in P10 scoring just a single point…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
