Andy Cowell, head of Aston Martin, has confirmed the improvements announced for this weekend’s F1 Grand Prix in Imola. The AMR25 is currently one of the worst cars on the grid. With these improvements, the team hopes to give itself a boost that will allow it to fight for midfield positions.
Andy Cowell confirms the new parts
Aston Martin CEO Andy Cowell has confirmed that the AMR25 will have new parts at the Imola circuit. The work carried out at Silverstone with the new wind tunnel and new staff is now being put to the test on the track. It is difficult and meticulous work, as Cowell describes it.
“That inquisitive work must be turned into substance through CAD models, drawings, composite laminates, etc. Every detail must be perfect to deliver what we want, and the stopwatch and data must confirm that this inquisitive approach has generated improvements in our car.”
Cowell is confident that the high level of parity on the grid will see them improve substantially. “Although we’re not scoring points regularly at the moment, if we improve by one percent we’d be in the fight for trophies; that’s how fine the margins are, but that’s much easier said than done.”
“We have to be obsessive. We have to be decisive, forensic and detailed in our investigation of the information gathered from the first six Grand Prix races, and in comparing it with the information obtained from the wind tunnel, CFD, tire models, driver simulator and all the areas where we are capturing a huge amount of information.”
Aston Martin improvements for Italy
Cowell has confirmed that Aston Martin will undergo a facelift compared to the start of the championship. The aerodynamics of the AMR25 and the airflow through the car will be improved with the aim of optimizing resources.
“We are bringing a new floor and a new upper body. With the current aerodynamic regulations, the floor is the biggest contributor to downforce, and the upper body helps deliver good quality airflow to key areas of the floor, so the two work hand in hand.”
“What we expect from this package is an improvement in downforce and an improvement in the consistency of that downforce on the car.”
On the other hand, Cowell announces that Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will drive cars with different configurations to cross-reference data and compare them.
“We will run one car with the new specification and the other with the existing specification at the start of the event and do a car-to-car evaluation. It is beneficial to run two cars with different specifications to get a direct comparison with identical track conditions.”
“I’m interested to see what the feedback from the drivers is and what the feedback from engineering is; all of this will feed into the correlation between what we see on track and what we’ve measured in our wind tunnel.”
The new wind tunnel, key to improvements
Cowell also confirmed that these new updates have been configured under the new wind tunnel, which still needs to be calibrated to perfection to obtain the most reliable data.
“The wind tunnel was used to map the update package we have for Imola. The package had been in development for several weeks before the wind tunnel was operational, but it has certainly been useful to have it for the final touches.”
“It’s a highly complex, state-of-the-art facility that is going to be a game-changer for us, so it’s been important to take the time to fully understand it and unlock its full potential.”