How Aston Martin is experiencing this end of season while preparing for 2025

After its incredible take-off in 2023, Aston Martin never managed to find its cruising speed. Forced to make an emergency landing, the English team is far from the podiums it was able to climb onto a year ago thanks to Fernando Alonso.

Several factors explain this brutal return to earth, including the direction taken in development. Surprisingly efficient at the start of 2023 to the point of being ahead Mercedes et Ferrari At the time, the Silverstone team mismanaged this point and ended up falling back. This year, it was able to rely on the lead it still had over the second half of the field to quickly score good points to secure 5th place. Because the last few months have been difficult for Aston Martin, which no longer really appears to be the 5th force on the grid, overtaken by, among others Haas recently. The total absence of points during the American triplet confirmed this trend a little more.

« The direction of development has always been clear, and that is crucial – perhaps more than people realise – but we have not managed to make the performance advances we expected and give Lance and Fernando a car that is good enough, recognize Mike Krack, Aston Martin team principal, said lucidly.

There are important lessons to be learned from this situation. We may have been a little too hasty in making changes. There is a constant demand for changes, and sometimes we were too hasty. There is one thing to be learned from this: quality, not quantity. »

An offensive recruitment to relaunch in 2025

The English team has long since given up on this 2024 campaign. Its lead over 6th place (now held by Alpine) is normally sufficient (37 points) to retain 5th place among the Constructors and, above all, to be able to use the last three Grands Prix as a laboratory for the design of the 2025 car, the AMR25.

The work has already started and Aston Martin can now rely on its brand new and already operational factory. Not to mention the XXL recruitment carried out with a view to the future: Andy Cowell (CEO), Adrian Newey (Technical Management Partner, from March 1, 2025) and Enrico Cardile (Technical Director). According to Mike Krack, the first returns are even promising.

« When I step back and look at the big picture, things are going well., assures the Luxembourger. The AMR25 looks encouraging in the wind tunnel (...) We have new facilities that are constantly being built, and the project to build the team of the future is moving forward. There are a lot of things happening in the background that convince me that we are going in the right direction, hence my confidence. We are in a much better position than last year, because we have learned a lot, from successes and failures. »

Now, the team principal wants to learn as much as possible from these last three outings of the year, taking advantage of each session on the track, from Friday to Sunday, with the ambition of quickly understanding whether the 2025 project is moving in the right direction. Then, the immediate objective will be to " to start the season in a better position than this year and, from what will hopefully be a solid base, to make good development decisions and continually develop the car to make improvements.. » For this, the latest reinforcements will be crucial.

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