The phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day” is an ancient proverb that reflects a practical and timeless wisdom. That classic phrase is used to refer to the fact that to achieve something you have to make an effort and everything takes time. That nothing is easy and that it is not done overnight, something that they are very clear about at Aston Martin.
Aston Martin’s start to the season has not been as good as might have been expected at the beginning. Although it is also true that they are having two sides to the coin, on the one hand Lance Stroll manages to get into the points, on the other, Fernando Alonso has not yet managed to finish a race and the unknowns of an AMR25.
The team is confident that Adrian Newey’s contribution and the new regulations will bring very positive things for the 2026 season. To change his luck, the team’s owner, Lawrence Stroll, has invested a lot of money in a new factory with state-of-the-art technology, where the wind tunnel stands out above all.
The new wind tunnel at the Silverstone Technology Campus is the most modern on the grid. Ben Fitzgerald, Aston Martin’s chief operating officer, is confident in this innovation: “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.
It opens up many avenues for development. “Now we can use the tunnel as we want depending on our position in the championship. Before, we used the Mercedes tunnel and we could only work on our programs between Friday and Sunday,” Fitzgerald added.
“Now, we will have the same number of tests, depending on our position in the championship, but we can go in and out of the tunnel according to our strategy defined by Eric Blandin and the aerodynamic team,” he explained. ”It will take time to optimize the wind tunnel, but we are already taking advantage of it and getting excellent data. It’s a big step forward for the team.”
“The aerodynamic decisions for the 2026 car are being sent out and in eight to ten weeks we will be able to have more solid concepts. We are already producing the chassis concept, and we will continue to refine it,” he said.
A key date for the future has been set: Barcelona. “We will have a new technical directive on spoiler elasticity and we have to produce a design that adheres to it. We must also have the necessary stock of that part,” Fitzgerald concludes.
On the other hand, the new factory, where all the departments of the Aston Martin Formula 1 team will work side by side, will also make a difference in the future. ”For the first time in about 20 years, the whole team is in the same place, at the AMR Technology Campus. The aerodynamicists, the model assembly technicians, the additive manufacturing department (which produces a large part of the raw material for the models) and the wind tunnel team are all together.”
“The interdisciplinary collaboration between these teams, although already very strong, will improve and develop even more by being under the same roof,” concluded the team’s chief operating officer.