It’s no secret that 2025 is shaping up to be a year of transition for Aston Martin. But hope springs eternal. Because Fernando Alonso‘s team, instead of throwing in the towel with the current generation of cars, will continue to work on and develop the current AMR25 for part of the season. From then on, all efforts in the factory will be devoted to the 2026 car.
The 2025 Aston Martin is a better car
Because yes, it feels (with numbers and times in hand, the only real indicators that exist) that the Aston Martin of this 2025 is a better car. Not as much as it should, mainly because this year the regulations are an extension of 2024 and don’t allow for too many changes, but enough to say that Fernando Alonso’s car is in a better position than what was concluded in Abu Dhabi.
It’s always difficult to improve. From the fastest to the one that constantly closes the classification. Red Bull, for example, is experiencing this scenario at the moment. They were the fastest team in 2023 and for much of 2024. But McLaren managed to make the leap to overtake them. From then on, the RB20 faded and was unable to get the best out of a very difficult car. And the same thing is happening this year, except for the fact that Ferrari and Mercedes are clearly ahead.
That is why, even if the results say otherwise, teams such as Aston Martin or Williams, which have made significant progress, have carried out a lot of tests in the simulator and wind tunnel to find the path they are looking for. The most notable is Carlos Sainz’s Williams. The Groove team have made a remarkable improvement, coming from the bottom of the table to now fighting to be the fifth car on the grid.
Newey already knows that Aston Martin is planning a major upgrade at Imola, but not much else
The case of Aston Martin is different. What we saw in Australia and China suggests that the AMR25 proved fast in the fast corners and a little less so in the slow corners. So far, and without knowing how far the car of Fernando Alonso and Stroll can go, there has been a noticeable change in the details that caused them to lose ground (and a lot of it) with the AMR24. The Spaniard showed a competitive pace in Albert Park before his accident, as well as in much of Saturday’s qualifying. “The car performs,” Cowell said after analyzing the data collected.
Fernando Alonso’s pace was very good at times, so much so that he was second fastest on lap 33 of the race in Australia (only beaten by Piastri), just before hitting a gravel trap at turn 6 and going into the wall, but that was in difficult conditions and with wet tires that were already almost slick.
With all this in mind, the idea from Silverstone is to keep putting pieces in place to make this car faster, obtaining improvements until a vital part of the season. After that, the green car will only undergo configuration modifications for the circuits, but no more performance improvements.
“I hope that in a year’s work it will be enough to have a winning team”
So much so that, coinciding with the arrival of Adrian Newey this March and his introduction at the factory, the prestigious engineer already knows that a major evolution is planned, probably at Imola, and that they will try to optimize the package with the data from the tests and the first six races up to that point, but without breaking the bank.
Or what is the same thing; it will be a package of performance developments important enough to ensure that Alonso and Stroll have the best possible tools in their hands for the European tour. This will begin precisely in Imola, at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on May 18th, until the event in Great Britain or Belgium, before the summer.
But from then on, everything will be aimed at the 2026 car, as is logical. There are not expected to be too many efforts for races like Canada or Austria, on paper more favorable tracks, but rather to focus all the work on the AMR26 being born with the stripes and feet of a winner.
The process of Aston Martin is also shared by Ben Fitzgerald, the British team’s chief operating officer. He is one of those who is confident in the future of the British team. With one key aspect: the new wind tunnel at the Silverstone Technology Campus. It is the most modern on the grid, much more so than the one used, for example, by Red Bull or the nineties Ferrari in Maranello. “We have to optimize it and it will take us a while, but we are already using it and it is providing us with great data. It is an important step for the team,” he confirmed.
Therefore, the idea that anything other than major steps forward for this year’s evolution team seems to be ruled out is emphasized. Fernando Alonso said it in Australia: ‘I hope that in a year’s work it will be enough to have a winning team.’ So be it.