Aston Martin has had quite the rise from last year to the present one. After finishing 7th in the Constructor’s championship and no podiums, with a lineup of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, the team has now risen to 4th in the Championship, and Stroll’s new teammate Fernando Alonso has been on the podium 7 times to far in 15 races.
Photo Credit: Aston Martin Cognizant Aramco Formula 1 Team
While swapping an experienced world champion for another, the garage and the factory in Silverstone have experienced a new point of view on how the car feels and responds. Alonso has offered his point of view to Aston Martin’s performance director Tom McCollough.
First and foremost, especially after Monza, a track where the AMR23 did not have enough straight-line speed, Alonso said that having better efficiency should be a priority in next year’s car to bring them further up the pecking order. The RB19 has proven to be the class of the field in this area.
“Fernando touched on the efficiency of the car. It is an area where at the start of the year we were definitely one of the slower cars in the straight line.
“We worked on that with the base car, and also the rear wing levels that we brought [to Monza]. It’s an area of improvement, and it is an area we need to improve more for next year, that’s clear.”
Photo credit: Aston Martin Cognizant Aramco Formula One Team
When reflecting on the development that the team has made in the last year, McCollough says that the entire car has been upgraded to make sure that the car is more efficient, and the results have showed. Based on the tracks that focus more on downforce and lower efficiency, like Singapore in a few days, could improve the car’s chances for this year and bring valuable data for next year’s car.
“The main architecture of the car, the whole car more than just the rear wings, the areas that we’ve worked on, there are a lot of elements that contribute to the efficiency of the car.
“And from now until the end of the season most of the tracks are not the higher efficiency tracks.
“Our focus is really on AMR24, to make sure that as we’re developing that car we are developing as efficiently as we can do, and more efficiently than this year’s car.”
Photo Credit: Aston Martin Cognizant Aramco Formula One Team