F1 | Aston with many new features following a more aggressive development

Imola is the first European round on the calendar, but it is also the event where several teams presented themselves with substantial update packages. Without the sprint to complicate the weekend, giving the teams little time to complete the necessary comparisons in free practice, the teams had the whole day on Friday to evaluate the updates, also being able to make comparisons with the old solutions.

Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are not the only teams to have brought news, because Sauber and Aston Martin also showed up on the banks of the Santerno with a new package to improve the car. In particular, the British team has intervened on nine different sections of the AMR24, in an attempt to continue a more aggressive and effective development path than that of last year.

Over the course of this season Aston Martin has consolidated its place towards mid-table, managing to worry McLaren and Mercedes on some occasions, but without finding the consistency necessary to also represent a constant threat to Ferrari and Red Bull. The best performances often came in qualifying, where the AMR24 proved to be more competitive than its progenitor, while it suffered from tire wear in the race.

According to technical director Dan Fallows, having analyzed the data from the first races of the season with the “launch” package, Aston Martin has well understood the points on which it is necessary to work to improve the performance of the AMR24. From these numbers the Imola updates came to life, which consist of a new front wing and a redesigned nose, to which are added a redesigned floor in many of its components and interventions on the rear suspension covers.

“The majority of this update package has been based on the data we’ve seen from the launch car, from the test car, and then how we want to evolve it,” said Fallows, who also mentioned how the team’s focus has become focused on making the AMR24 not only faster, but also more practical on a wide variety of circuits instead of only giving its best on a certain number of tracks with certain characteristics.

“We have seen that some circuits adapt better than others and this is something we have focused on to ensure we can be consistent everywhere. We are in a technical era of ground effect cars that have specific performance windows. Obviously we always try to expand this aspect. So when you introduce an update, you want to make sure it’s effective under all different conditions.”

Aston Martin AMR24 rear detail

Picture of: Giorgio Piola

Aston Martin was the surprise of the first half of last season, but gradually slipped to the role of fifth force because it struggled to maintain the pace of development of its rivals during the year, not in terms of the quantity of updates, but in terms of the quality of the technical innovations. The discrepancies between the factory data and those on the track had led the British team onto the wrong path, which they only managed to correct towards the end of the championship and began to find a good correlation again.

According to Fallows, the mistakes made in the past world championship represented a crucial element in drawing up a development plan defined as “aggressive” for this season.

“We’ve figured out where we can push harder than in the past and where we need to be a little more careful. It’s been a learning experience and I think we now have a little more confidence that these updates can work,” he said. explained Fallows.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“It’s a pretty aggressive development plan. We knew we had a car that warranted a lot of opportunity in terms of developments at the start of the season and we wanted to make sure we had continuous updates. This is probably the biggest package we’ve brought so far. But it’s part of our plan and we want to continue on this path in the next races too.”

The first day of testing, however, didn’t go exactly as hoped. The ranking shows a tenth place finish with Fernando Alonso, even if Lando Norris’ mistake must be added to the equation which took him out of the top ten with a car capable of guaranteeing him the front rows. As has already happened on other occasions, already on Friday Aston Martin seems to have lapped with a more pushy mapping than its rivals, as can also be seen from the references at the end of the straight.

This does not mean, however, that greater difficulties emerge on bends, especially in the medium-high speed ones in the first sector and at Piratella. However, problems also emerge in the last half time and, more specifically, in the last two corners, where once again the AMR24 has a significant gap from its rivals. Aston Martin focused a lot on researching the setup, carrying out various experiments, but on Saturday we will need to find the right direction to work in to improve the set-up after the data collection work.