2025 Aston Martin | Aramco F1 Team

[RedNEO]

People who think Aston shouldn’t work on 2025 are completely clueless how F1 works. Aston would go into 2026 with ZERO confidence very low morale and no clue what they see actually works on track. 2025 is important to build confidence and gain momentum and Newey will absolutely play a part in assisting with updates. It’s got nothing to do with being Alonso fans like some user tried suggesting. Knowledge is knowledge no matter what the year or regulations and you won’t gain knowledge by doing nothing and hoping it works out next year without learning how to make a fast car

[Nikosar]

The term "technical director" was pretty misleading at AMR in the last years and the term is not used anymore.

Fallows joined the team with this titel, working on the same level as Furbatto (engineering director) and McCullough (perfomance director), he was not their superior, all 3 were reporting to Green (the head of the technical department, officially called CTO).

At the start of the 2023 season Green was moved aside (rumours say because he didn't get along with Whitmarsh). I guess at this time they had the "McLaren structure", 1 head for each department, but no head for all departments anymore.

That changed in 2024 again, when Bob Bell joined the team as "executive director". In the press release the team described him as the guy "with the overall responsibility for the Technical, engineering and Perfomance functions". So Bell is more or less the successor of Green.

Now it is clear that Cardile, once he joins, will be the new Green/Bell, with Newey somewhere above him.

Bell seems to be (also looking at his age) a temporary solution since 2024.

The successor of Fallows is Eric Blandin. Not called "technical director" anymore but "aerodynamics director".

With the arrival of Gioacchino Vino as the new head of aerodynamics, do we expect Eric Blandin to change positions? Will he work under Eric Blandin?

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

People who think Aston shouldn’t work on 2025 are completely clueless how F1 works. Aston would go into 2026 with ZERO confidence very low morale and no clue what they see actually works on track. 2025 is important to build confidence and gain momentum and Newey will absolutely play a part in assisting with updates. It’s got nothing to do with being Alonso fans like some user tried suggesting. Knowledge is knowledge no matter what the year or regulations and you won’t gain knowledge by doing nothing and hoping it works out next year without learning how to make a fast car

Exactly, I think they decided to do almost nothing, since the problem in Mercedes windtunnel and the lot of correlation issues. I don't know why they get always different results with their tools than on the track, but seems like Redbull exactly in the same shoes since last year. They say is all because the wind tunnel not designed for this type of cars and also old. But the continous rules or even tyres changes middle of the season also doesn't help at all,because all teams got slower by a second just because of regulation changes. Unfortunately we didn't see from it ,just the lap times.

[-wkst-]

With the arrival of Gioacchino Vino as the new head of aerodynamics, do we expect Eric Blandin to change positions? Will he work under Eric Blandin?

No. Mercedes also has an aero director (Jarrod Murphy), like Blandin at AMR. Vino worked as chief aerodynamicist at Mercedes and works in the same position at AMR.

[Otromundo]

Honestly, I'm quite confused by the current situation. Even more so when I see the progress and improvement of the teams that were previously below us. That's why I often think the car's original design has flaws. And that to fix them, we'd have to start with a new chassis of different dimensions, with new suspensions, and probably also new transmissions. But all of this is impossible to do now ...

I trust Mr. Diffuser is right and that the main flaw lies in the car's floor. I hope AN knows the right modifications and that manufacturing the new floor will be easy. It would be a godsend.

I must also admit that, by following MotoGP at the same time, I'm starting to get saturated with so many regulations, tire types, practice sessions, sprint races and qualifying, real-life races... I think they're going too far with their spectacle approach.

My guess is as good as anybodies!!!

Yes, but the floor of the car is beyond my understanding. I understand the difference between concave and convex surfaces. But the correct aerodynamic relationship between them eludes me. The only thing I understand is that in a car, aerodynamics should work exactly the opposite of what it does in an airplane: instead of taking off, it should stick to the ground.

So this is the only relatively simple explanation for what's going on. Perhaps it doesn't require a complete change in the car's design, but simply that delicate relationship between taking off and staying stuck to the ground.

Apparently, the car tends to stick to the ground too much: that's why it degrades the tires excessively, is terrible in slow corners, and is also slow on the straights. It seems like a logical correlation to me.

I hope you're right and that AM corrects its aerodynamics accordingly. It would be the fastest, most efficient, and most cost-effective option. Otherwise, another lost season with the consequent impact on team morale, as others have mentioned.

[TyreSlip]

https://www.funoanalisitecnica.com/2025 ... e_vignette

These whispers in the paddock are all too familiar. I heard them a lot in 2012 and 2013, and they came true with Merecedes having a dominate power unit in 2014 and years thereafter. I wish we knew where Honda stood because everything being sacrified for 2026 could be in vain.

[diffuser]

With the arrival of Gioacchino Vino as the new head of aerodynamics, do we expect Eric Blandin to change positions? Will he work under Eric Blandin?

No. Mercedes also has an aero director (Jarrod Murphy), like Blandin at AMR. Vino worked as chief aerodynamicist at Mercedes and works in the same position at AMR.

Who hired this guy? Cowell? I mean he's from Merc and obviously Bladin knows him as well.

[diffuser]

My guess is as good as anybodies!!!

Yes, but the floor of the car is beyond my understanding. I understand the difference between concave and convex surfaces. But the correct aerodynamic relationship between them eludes me. The only thing I understand is that in a car, aerodynamics should work exactly the opposite of what it does in an airplane: instead of taking off, it should stick to the ground.

So this is the only relatively simple explanation for what's going on. Perhaps it doesn't require a complete change in the car's design, but simply that delicate relationship between taking off and staying stuck to the ground.

Apparently, the car tends to stick to the ground too much: that's why it degrades the tires excessively, is terrible in slow corners, and is also slow on the straights. It seems like a logical correlation to me.

I hope you're right and that AM corrects its aerodynamics accordingly. It would be the fastest, most efficient, and most cost-effective option. Otherwise, another lost season with the consequent impact on team morale, as others have mentioned.

I think they have something coming with the floor cause they simplified it for 2025. Based on that I believe they think their stability problems was their floor. The simplification gave them stability but they gave up all their low speed df. This results in them running more rear wing and slows down high speed.

[-wkst-]

With the arrival of Gioacchino Vino as the new head of aerodynamics, do we expect Eric Blandin to change positions? Will he work under Eric Blandin?

No. Mercedes also has an aero director (Jarrod Murphy), like Blandin at AMR. Vino worked as chief aerodynamicist at Mercedes and works in the same position at AMR.

Who hired this guy? Cowell? I mean he's from Merc and obviously Bladin knows him as well.

Don't think so. His departure from Mercedes was announced last May.

[FNTC]

People who think Aston shouldn’t work on 2025 are completely clueless how F1 works. Aston would go into 2026 with ZERO confidence very low morale and no clue what they see actually works on track. 2025 is important to build confidence and gain momentum and Newey will absolutely play a part in assisting with updates. It’s got nothing to do with being Alonso fans like some user tried suggesting. Knowledge is knowledge no matter what the year or regulations and you won’t gain knowledge by doing nothing and hoping it works out next year without learning how to make a fast car

100% agree. They need to show that they can develop a car throughout this year (after the failures to do so the last few years), and using the new wind tunnel, making sure it correlates with CFD, etc. If not they are blind going into 2026 and will have no idea if the 2026 development will work or not, in addition to the lower confidence, etc. I can understand if Newey doesn't want his name associated with the AMR25 in any way, but I am pretty sure he wants to see the team being able to improve on this years car, so hopefully he will give some pointers behind the scenes at least. Then if the AMR25 suddenly improves a lot he can get credit, and if not, he didn't have anything to do with it.
Also I am pretty sure Lawrence doesn't want to sit there every race weekend, seeing Aston being the slowest or second slowest car all year.

[JPower]

Makes sense to me. There's no reason for Newey to spend time on the current car. It's a lost cause and everyone at the team likely realized that during testing.

[Nikosar]

https://twitter.com/autosport/status/19 ... 5765126197

Makes sense to me. There's no reason for Newey to spend time on the current car. It's a lost cause and everyone at the team likely realized that during testing.

I agree with it.

Isn't necessarily that Aston is throwing away the entire season. Rather, they don't have a specific target for this year, such as aiming for 5th place, as they are focusing the majority of their resources on the 2026 season.

While there is a significant gap in prize money at the end of the year, James Vowles made an interesting point when he joined Williams : it's possible to invest for short-term gains, but that approach doesn't provide long-term stability. Cowell and Aston Martin have therefore chosen to prioritize the future, even if it means sacrificing results in the short term. The team worked hard on a series of upgrades between 2023 and 2024, introducing the most updates in the process, but unfortunately, these didn’t yield the expected results. It seems they’ve decided to concentrate on the 2026 project rather than continue pouring resources into the 2025 season.

We can now argue on an interesting contrast: if Aston is willing to spend less resources this season for future gains, how Williams is managing to balance both immediate development and long-term planning ? Both teams seem to have similar goals, but the way they are executing those goals is clearly different.

For me, Vowles has managed to set up a structure of more than a thousand people quickly while Cowell (as he is just started) is still organizing and structuring the various teams.

After all we need to keep in mind, as we have all been saying for a long time, only one good upgrade can make a significant leap forward in the field and the season is still very long, so we shall see.

[GrizzleBoy]

Possibly off topic, but I saw a purple Valkyrie on the motorway yesterday and it was one of the most impressive looking things I ever saw with my own eyes.

[FNTC]

From the Autosport article:

When asked whether Newey had provided any insight into possible design flaws on the 2025 car, Cowell said he had only offered broad feedback.

“[His thoughts] are focused largely on the tools that we're using rather than any direct performance aspects of the 25 car,” he explained.

“But there is value in Adrian understanding the tools that we've got, the fidelity of those tools, and the precision with which they predict what's going to happen on the racetrack.”

[KimiRai]

Alonso says Newey is focusing only in 2026 and he fully agrees with it. I think the discussion can be closed.

Update package is still important though to check correlation and whether new tools are working as Cowell said.