F1 | Aston Martin starts again from the Imola wing and from a different background

Aston Martin needs to reverse a negative trend. The Silverstone team is fifth in the Constructors’ World Championship and, what is worse, the haul of world championship points (44) brings the team of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll closer to the second group than to the first, paying 52 points from the Mercedes in front and having a 20 point margin over Racing Bulls who are rapidly rising.

The AMR24 is a car with certainly interesting aerodynamic solutions, but which shows inconsistent behavior on the track, revealing a lack of stability resulting from a precarious balance that does not allow the drivers to extract the potential that, instead, can be sensed in the “verdona”.

Not only that, but the technical structure directed by Dan Fallows seems to suffer from the same defects as last year: in 2023, after a very brilliant start to the season full of podiums, it debuted a substantial package of updates in Montreal and from that moment on the AMR24 seemed to have lost the path of development, suffering a phase of ebb that had made Aston Martin slip backwards in seasonal values, only to find the right path again at the end of the championship when a few steps back had been made in the aerodynamic choices.

Unfortunately, the situation seems to be repeating itself this year too: an interesting development was seen at Imola which did not give the Enzo and Dino Ferrari the results they expected at Silverstone. In Monte Carlo, a track with maximum aerodynamic load and low efficiency, the AMR24 had returned to a standard version, while in Canada there is the ambition to make the solutions proposed in the Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna GP work.

Our Giorgio Piola had the opportunity to see in the Montreal pit lane the front wing that had attracted so many attentions at Imola due to the unusual V shape of the last two flaps and with the revised nose cone that supported the main profile.

Compared to the original version, the one brought to Canada features the last element which has been revised in the slightly increased string at the trailing edge by the addition of a nolder which was not present in Italy. Although the Montreal track would require a medium-low load setup, Aston Martin is looking for that missing aerodynamic balance with a slightly higher impact solution.

Tomorrow we will also have the opportunity to discover the first update of the fund which has been revised in some parts after having collected the unsatisfactory data from Imola. The team is sure that the AMR24 has potential that has remained hidden until now and Lawrence Stroll’s ambition is for the team to return to scoring points with the two drivers, because they were left empty-handed in Monaco.

There is strong turbulence at Silverstone: on the one hand the transfer from the old headquarters to the new one continues and it is not easy to keep one foot in both shoes, and on the other the pressure is growing from those who hypothesize Enrico Cardile’s arrival from Ferrari, if Adrian Newey, the most desired technician of the terraqueo, were to refuse the princely offer of father Stroll.