Aston Martin: the new package will be tested again in Mexico
After a brilliant start Aston Martin has now sunk to fifth in the championship, unable to keep up with its competitors - Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren - in the development phase. From Canada onwards the AMR23 has become a car sensitive to external factors and with an optimum balance difficult to achieve. The recovery at Zandvoort was just an illusion, despite the setback on some aerodynamic choices. In Austin the situation allowed, after a negative start, an on-track comparison between the Qatar car and the one equipped with updates, and the first feedback is positive, awaiting confirmation in Mexico.
The Austin GP was an ordeal for Aston Martin. The AMR23 continues to shrimp and is now overtaken in fourth place by McLaren. The car of Dan Fallows and Luca Furbatto seems to have lost its way after an astonishing first part of the season that saw it repeatedly play the role of second force in the field.
Friday in Texas was a real debacle, with a starting set-up that was out of the window. The Sprint weekend and a single free practice session certainly did not help to correct the situation. The decision to break the parc fermé, starting with both drivers from the pit lane, was a direct consequence. On Sunday, however, the results were seen, with a good recovery both from Alonso and, above all, from a Stroll finally close to his Spanish team-mate. A meagre consolation for a team that has been among the top for a good part of the season, and for some races has been unable to be at the level of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
The AMR23 underperformed in Austin due to an incorrect starting set-up
Since the post-Canadian GP, where the first important developments arrived, there has been talk of an AMR23 that has lost its rhythm in direct confrontation with its rivals. Mike Krack's team, by its own admission, claimed to have had difficulty finding its car's running window after efforts were made to increase downforce. With these cars equipped with venturi channels, making developments has become more complicated because what you see in simulation does not always reflect the behaviour of the aerodynamic platform on the track. In an F1 without testing, this effect is even more pronounced. In Austin we arrived with a starting setup that put both AMR23s completely out of the window, and brake over-heating problems meant that they could not be remedied in time for qualifying. The Texan track proved to be tougher than expected for several teams, including Haas (and to some extent Ferrari) in adopting the right aero-mechanical compromise. The "verdona" performed significantly better in the race after the set-up changes, and both drivers were back in the points zone.
"We knew that the car could perform much better than we had seen on Friday and Saturday, so we decided to go for a pragmatic approach, differentiating the packages and breaking the parc fermé," said aerodynamics chief Eric Blandin. Alonso had to retire with bottom damage due to an over-aggressive pass on a kerb, Stroll on the other hand managed to finish P7 benefiting from the disqualifications of Hamilton and Leclerc.
Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren more effective than Aston Martin in development
According to Mike Krack it is not so much their cars that have taken steps backwards, but mainly that Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have had a better progression with developments: 'the distance to the top has not changed significantly. At the end of the race the gap is similar to what it was at the start of the year. The Silverstone team had to cope with a car that lost balance, which was also sensitive to external factors such as asphalt temperatures and unevenness - 'If we now go back to Jeddah and Bahrain, there is not a big difference even in race pace between us and Red Bull. The only difference from before is that there are now three teams in the middle."
The 'strengthened' T018 and TD039 technical directives worked against one of the strengths of Dan Fallows' car, namely making use of flexible aerodynamic parts, especially with regard to the front wing. The Silverstone team, which with the signing with Honda for 2026 began its journey away from being a satellite team of Mercedes, had made a big leap with the AMR23 compared to the disappointing 2022. The ultimate test was to compare itself with the top teams on the long run and on development, and so far the results have not been as positive. Lawrance Stroll's stable is investing heavily in the future, and the long-awaited proprietary wind tunnel by 2025 will be an important step in the direct confrontation with big teams.
The new bottom will be reintroduced in Mexico but early feedback from Austin was 'cautiously' positive
The new bottom in Austin was only promoted on Stroll's car, while on Alonso's car it was decided to turn around and use the old specification, taking advantage of the opening of the parc fermé seals. The first data on the new specification is shrouded in a fair amount of caution, but from Aston they say that 'the initial findings are nevertheless positive'. With the new specification, work has once again been done on the underfloor, which had been revised to a large extent with the first upgrade in Canada. In Belgium there had been a step backwards on the aerodynamic shape in that aerodynamic specification, further corrected with the large package at Zandvoort. The exploit in Holland, with an AMR23 back in second place, led to the belief that the new package had put the British car back on track, which sank again in the following races.
In the undercut area, Aston Martin's engineers have gone a bit 'backwards and forwards' in trying to find load without losing balance. With the specification seen in Austin, the kerb has been extensively revised, more similar in design to the competitors to better seal the flow via specially created vortices to form a sort of barrier. The decision to keep the new specification in the race on one of the two cars (Stroll) was dictated by the fact that every single kilometre was used for accurate data collection ahead of the back-to-back with Mexico City. Having a smoother and less concentrated weekend will allow the new package, which also included a slightly revised diffuser and beam wing, to be optimised.
