What has happened to Aston Martin?
They went from being second-best to Red Bull and back to being midfield stragglers in 2024. What has gone wrong at Aston Martin?
As Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren all eye a potential opportunity to close the gap to Red Bull at the upcoming trio of European races, one question has been on the mind of most: What has happened to Aston Martin?
Last year, Fernando Alonso scored the most points out of any non-Red Bull driver, in a season that was heralded as a masterstroke in contract negotiations for a driver that often mistimes his moves.
Now, it is starting to look like that glory was short-lived.
Ever since the Miami Grand Prix, Aston Martin has been on the missing list. The team introduced an upgrade package that has put them on the back foot, specifically a low-drag rear wing that should have provided better straight-line speed to help it fight against rivals.
After running it in practice, the team abandoned the design and reverted to its usual configuration. This made it harder for Alonso and Lance Stroll in the race, managing P17 and DNF in the Sprint respectively while Alonso held on to a points finish in the race by virtue of the mid-race safety car.
Team principal Mike Krack brushed it off as a one-off performance, claiming they “will learn the lessons” for the next races. Things did not get better.
Alonso crashed in FP3 at Imola, was knocked out of qualifying in Q1, then branded his race “the most boring ever” after starting from the pit lane and finishing 17th. Stroll had a better outing finishing in the points in 9th but it was clear RB was making strives when Yuki Tsunoda finished behind in 10th.
Monaco was another non-point finish for both drivers and while Canada offered some hope having achieved their largest points haul of the year (14 points), Krack warned that it would be “premature” to say they were starting to understand their problems.
The team has been honest about their upgrades not working as intended and taking performance away from their car. Krack highlighted the problems that creates for the drivers: “The car is quite tough to drive, and we have not managed to cure that so far. So what we need is a car more benign, easier to extract potential, give them more confidence.”
Alonso shut down any questions regarding the specifics when asked by media in Spain but performance director, Tom McCullough, offered some insight in where their strengths lie speaking on the F1 Nation podcast: “We have rattled out, on average, as the fifth-fastest team this year and at times we’ve been better - especially in qualifying - where the DRS is quite important and that’s one real strength of our car.”
When asked where they will be strongest in the upcoming triple header, McCullough said: “Our car, with its DRS and efficiency, will probably favour Silverstone, Austria, then Barcelona.”
While the team is not suffering from the same issues as Mercedes, the car visibly looks like it suffers from understeer mid-corner more than its rivals. This will be an issue around the high-speed elongated corners at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, and perhaps why McCullough predicts Silverstone and Austria will play to their strengths.
The team has brought a raft of upgrades to Spain, notably to the front suspension which features improved fairings and revised twist distribution. The front brake duct scoops and rear lower deflectors have also been improved in a bid to gain extra performance from those areas.
It’s an important next few races for Aston Martin since they sit fifth in the Constructors’ Championship with 30 points separating them and RB, who are bringing more updates to their car. Their factory-to-track correlation has been a lot better than Aston Martin’s and a decent enough points haul could see Aston Martin’s fifth under threat at the end of the triple header.
With Alonso having committed his future to the team, it is important to show progress or things could turn sour. Team owner Lawrence Stroll has shown his commitment to turning the Silverstone team into a race-winning outfit by investing millions in a new wind tunnel facility and upgrading their factory. But since rebranding to the marquee car company in 2021, they have yet to take Aston Martin’s first Grand Prix victory.
Krack believes Alonso has bought into the journey, noting that they were not ready to take on Red Bull after running close last year: “We are on a journey to become a bigger team, a top team. We have quite a lot of infrastructure projects in the making. [Last year] we had quite a lot of good results, but we were not ready as a team. We were in a different position.
“We still had our old factory. Nothing had changed. I think we have grown over the 12 months. Unfortunately, the results are not as good as they were last year, but this is very often circumstantial. Other teams have made more progress than we have done in comparison. Overall, we are in a better place, how we go about things, how we discuss things, how we make changes.”
It sounded like BMW Sauber when they cited “not ready to win yet” with Robert Kubica when he stood an outside chance of winning the 2008 World Championship off the back of his consistency. It would have been hard to break Red Bull’s unbeaten run of victories in 2023, but they came close at Monaco and Canada.
The team is probably the furthest away it has been since the start of 2022 from challenging for race wins, but if they get back on track at this stage of the season they could thrust themselves into the mix for 2025.
The NIBs
Briatore given advisor role at Alpine
Italian businessman, Flavio Briatore, will return to Alpine as an executive advisor nearly 15 years after Renault fired him for fixing the race result of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
The team said his role will: “focus on top-level areas of the team including: scouting top talents and providing insights on the driver market, challenging the existing project by assessing the current structure and advising on some strategic matters.”
Briatore was given a “lifetime ban” from F1 for his role in Crashgate in 2009 by the FIA, although this was later overturned by the French courts in 2010. Since then he has never really left the F1 paddock, utilising his connections to work with various individuals in the championship including Alonso.
When asked about the optics of the decision, team principal Bruno Famin said: “I don’t really mind about the past, I’m always looking at the future and trying to make our team better. Having Flavio as an advisor is an opportunity to have his experience. He has a very high level of knowledge of F1, knows a lot of people, and I’m sure he will support us in developing the team faster and better.”
Mercedes call police over ‘anonymous email’ claiming Hamilton sabotage
Mercedes has revealed the police are involved in investigating an anonymous email sent to media and F1 personnel accusing the team of deliberately sabotaging Lewis Hamilton’s car.
The anonymous email was sent to the same member of F1 media who received the WhatsApp messages allegedly sent by Christian Horner earlier this year. It claimed team principal Toto Wolff and Mercedes of “systematic sabotaging” of his car, strategy, and mental health.
Wolff denied the claims and told media: “We have the police inquiring [about] it. We're researching the IP address. We are researching the phone. All of that because online abuse in that way needs to stop. People can't hide behind their phones or their computers and abuse teams or drivers in a way like this.”