Aston Martin have proven to be the biggest surprise of 2023 as they vaulted up the pecking order this year.
In 2022, they had a terrible start to the season with a car that was slow and extremely tricky to drive. A nightmare weekend in Melbourne saw Stroll and Vettel hit the barriers multiple times.
However, a new car concept introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix improved things somewhat, and they managed to finish P7 in the Constructors’ Championship.
A big improvement over the winter has really seen them take a giant step forward. After five races in 2023, Fernando Alonso is P3 in the Drivers’ Championship, with Aston currently 2nd in the Constructors’.
Speaking in Miami last weekend, the team’s technical director Dan Fallows opened up about the AMR23. The Brit believes the team’s 2023 package is a good all-round car and doesn’t have any massive weaknesses in it.
Photo credit: Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team
“It’s not necessarily that I think our car has particular strengths in some areas,” stated Fallows.
“I think we have managed to generate a car which is reasonably capable in a lot of different areas so we can tune it to what we believe is the optimum for that particular track.
“There are certainly areas that we are focused on from an aerodynamic and mechanical point of view that we think we can make progress, but honestly I don’t look at it as a car that has any significant weaknesses at the moment.
“It’s just that we want to build on the speed that we have got and keep going with the same philosophy.”
In spite of the massive progress over the course of the winter and the strength of the AMR23 at various type of circuits to date, Aston Martin still have progress to make.
Red Bull have come out with a ‘rocketship’ this year, and it’s going to require the Silverstone-based team more time to get on terms with them.
Fallows spent 16 years at the Milton Keynes-based team, and he knows that Red Bull are further ahead and more sure of everything in regards to their particular car concept.
“We do need to consider where we are relative to the Red Bull, but I think there are areas we believe we’re relatively strong,” said Fallows.
“We have to optimise our car for every particular circuit, which means that sometimes there may be aspects of whether it’s low speed, high speed corners which aren’t quite as strong as some other competitors.
“I think the Red Bull as a concept has been evolved for a bit longer than ours. We obviously very publicly went to a different concept early last year, so we are still developing that.
“We think we’ve made a very big step this year but we still have a little way to go, and I think honestly I wouldn’t point to one single area a bit, I think we just need to improve everything.”
It was quite a shock to most observers and fans of the sport to see the leap Aston made over the winter when the cars started testing in Bahrain. Fernando Alonso was immediately setting rapid times, and he has backed that up on race weekends with four podium finishes in five races.
Fallows has a championship winning mentality from his time at Red Bull, so it comes as no surprise that he’s already setting the target of hunting his old team down.
As for the gigantic strides forward over the 22/23 winter period, the stated aim inside the team heading into this season was to challenge Ferrari and Mercedes.
“Yeah I think we targeted a big step, we were quite aggressive about pursuing that target and it has been gratifying to see that we have made a big step on last year,” Fallows added.
“I think again if we look at ourselves and look at our relative pace to the fastest car which at the moment is the Red Bull, we still have a way to go.
“So yeah, absolutely delighted that we’ve made a step that we were hoping for, but we need to look to make the next one.”
Photo credit: Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team
