The first Aston Martin AMR25 mystery that will be solved on Saturday

The extent of Aston Martin’s step forward over the winter will become clear this weekend in Australia, but expectations are being downplayed.

The new AMR25 has seen the Silverstone-based squad overhaul the aerodynamics of what was a recalcitrant 2024 car, but pre-season testing suggested Aston Martin could be in for a difficult season – at least in the early stages.

Fernando Alonso ‘keeping calm and pragmatic’ over winter progress

With F1 heading into the final year of the current regulations set, and Aston Martin already working ahead on getting ready for the revolutionary regulations incoming next season, the AMR25 is broadly an evolution of last year’s car but has seen an extensive overhaul on the aerodynamic front.

Aston Martin had a low-key pre-season test in Bahrain, with mutterings around the paddock suggesting the team could be in the bottom handful of teams to start the new season.

Two-time F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso was keen to point out that the AMR25 is broadly the same car as last year, downplaying the expectation of a huge leap forward for this season, and explained to the media in Australia that he encountered a very different feeling car on each day of testing in Bahrain.

“I think it is better, but still not 100 percent on a happy place,” he said about the new Aston Martin F1 car.

“But I think it could be, as I said, the same for everybody.

“Especially in Bahrain, every day is a new adventure there, depending on the wind and the temperature. I think we found three different cars in the three different days of testing, and it will be the fourth different car tomorrow when we hit the track, because it’s a completely new nature of layout for the car.

“I’m keeping very calm, very pragmatic. Every session, trying to learn about the car and, in qualifying, at the same time in the same conditions for everybody, let’s see where we are.

“I think the first part of the year is going to be interesting to really maximise the package and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the car, especially on Sundays, when we compare to other cars around.”

While progress has been made, Alonso explained, the biggest gains could be made in terms of operational sharpness and readiness, given the close nature of the midfield battle.

“I think, yes, we did a step forward. The thing about 2024 was that we ended up very close together, all the midfield, and it seems that even the midfield went quite close to the top teams,” he said.

“The whole grid now is very tight, and it’s very difficult to put performance on the car without making the drivability nearly impossible, because there is a very fine line of adding performance without disturbing the drivability of the car.

“I think we did a step forward, but everyone seems to do the same this last winter, so I think it’s going to be very tight, but I’m not too worried.

“It’s time for us to deliver something extra on the weekends, and we have the right people, we have the talent and we have the confidence, so let’s see at the end of the year.”

Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll said that, at this point of the season, Aston Martin will not be fighting for the positions they’d hoped.

“We’re gonna try our best, as we always do, and do what we can with what we have,” he said.

“Some tracks might be stronger than other tracks, and we’ll try and make the most out of the season, like we do every season.

“I think we know that we made a step and we know that it’s not as big as we want it to be to fight for the positions we want to fight for. Those are things we know, so let’s see.

“It’s a relative game so I think there are corners that were stronger than other corners. The car can feel great and can still be slow, and the car can feel terrible and be fast. So I think we’ll just see how we look this weekend and the first few races, and how competitive we are and go from there.”

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Andy Cowell: AMR25 is better than 2024 car in many areas

Andy Cowell, who succeeded Mike Krack as team boss during a winter re-shuffle of management as Krack moved to lead the team’s trackside operations, explained what has been going on in the background since the conclusion of the pre-season test.

“It’s been a couple of weeks just looking at the data from three days of difficult testing because of the weather conditions, and testing different aero parts, different mechanical parts,” he said.

“We’re pleased that a chunk of it worked. We have got a car that we believe is better than last year’s car in many attributes.

“But, as ever, there are always bits to work on – if ever you get to the point where you can’t spot areas to improve, it’s time to retire. We’re definitely not in that position.

“So there are areas through corners, there’s areas down the straight where we’re working to improve the car – some of which we can do here, some of which requires further development work to improve both aero and mechanical platform.”

With the balance of the old car being the main issue for Alonso and Stroll, Cowell explained that the area of correlation has been a key priority over the winter.

“I think we’ve improved the through-corner stability of the car. It’s something that we worked hard on,” he said.

“We’ll get some more data this weekend.

“There’s a world of aerodynamics, the correlation between CFD, wind tunnel and the track is a challenge for all 10 teams, and, as we’ve seen with this current regulation set, everybody loses that link now and again.

“We’ve put a lot of hard work, a lot of analysis work into pressure-tapping data on the car, and how does that link in with the wind tunnel and CFD to link it together better. ”

The main takeaway from Thursday’s media day in Melbourne is that Aston Martin isn’t expecting miracles at this point of the season, but hasn’t yet firmly fleshed out where it may be in the pecking order.

Such questions will only be answered on Saturday, Cowell believes, who said qualifying will answer whether the AMR25 is a Q1 or Q2 car.

“Everybody in the 10 teams doesn’t know exactly where they are against their opponents,” he said.

“Qualifying is that first measure and it looks like it’s going to be hot on Saturday, so no challenges with the weather in terms of rain or anything, and that’s the point where everybody’s trying the hardest – soft tyres, single lap.

“So we’ll have our first measure on Saturday, and I guess the weather on Sunday might cloud the results, probably, with regards to unhindered race pace.

“Maybe we won’t get the results on that, but we’ll get an indication, and we’ll take that away and learn from that. We got a good steer. We tested lots of different things, and we got a good steer on where we’re up to compared with prior cars, and where we think we should work to make our car quicker.

“We weren’t going out to do the traditional sort of testing, which has made it difficult for us to work out where we are against our opponents. We know what engine mode, what tyres, what fuel load we were running. Nobody else knows that, I don’t believe…”

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