Aston Martin has taken a step forward this season in F1, and although Fernando Alonso has started the year with a retirement in the Australian GP, the team is satisfied with the start of the season, and no wonder, because despite the withdrawal of the Spaniard, they achieved an important sixth place with Lance Stroll, thanks to the performance of the car and a very accurate reading of the race at the key moment.
The AMR25is a better car than last year’s car: under normal circumstances, without rain, the car was fighting to be the fifth car on the grid, and the motivation is that the times with the best are very close, with just a few tenths of a second difference.
Since Silverstone, with the factory already operating at full capacity and the bulk of the engineers working flat out (all that is missing is Enrico Cardile, who will join in June after Ferrari’s signing was stalled), they are already looking for ways to gain those tenths of a second that will allow them to fight at the top of the grid, and it seems that they already know what to change and when to do it to achieve it.
In this sense, the role that Adrián Newey is playing and the commissioning of the wind tunnel (Aston Martin saved many hours for the arrival of the engineer) are going to be key to achieving the improvements that the AMR25 needs to be able to fight for a podium during the season.
Aston Martin sets its sights on Imola
Andy Cowell, CEO of Aston Martin, has said in recent interviews that great ideas have emerged in recent weeks for the improvement of the single-seater and to improve its speed in all aspects, without indicating when they will be able to carry them out and introduce them in the AMR25. According to Grada3, Aston Martin is preparing a very important package of improvements for the first race of the year on European soil. It will be the weekend of the Imola GP in Italy, which takes place next Sunday, May 18. Two months, that is the time Aston Martin has set itself to give Fernando Alonso the new parts that could allow him to fight for the top positions in the world championship.
If these improvements for Aston Martin materialize, both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will have the option of fighting for more ambitious goals in the races and ensuring, at the very least, fifth place in the constructors’ world championship and being able to think about doing something bigger this year.
Adrian Newey leads the changes
Although Aston Martin say that Adrian Newey‘s work is focused on 2026 (and this is true, because the main reason for his arrival is to focus on him making a new car with the new regulations), this does not mean that he is not keeping an eye on what he does this year. Since arriving at Aston Martin a couple of weeks ago, he has got down to work and has seen how the AMR25 works. In addition, the team’s new wind tunnel favors more optimal development, all supervised by Adrian Newey. If you add to this the fact that Aston Martin saved many hours for the arrival of the engineer (also so as not to depend on the Mercedes wind tunnel), the chances of these improvements catapulting the car forward are considerably multiplied.
The 2025 F1 World Championship is very compact. Until the arrival of Imola, in two months’ time, there are still five races to be held, but Aston Martin is optimistic about current performance and even more so about the performance they can offer once the Grand Circus lands on European soil.