Aston Martin's new wind tunnel "opened our eyes to a few characteristics", claims team boss Andy Cowell

Reflecting on the Silverstone squad's new wind tunnel, Aston Martin team boss Andy Cowell insists that the new facility "has opened our eyes to a few characteristics".

For the 2025 F1 season, Aston Martin retained Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll as their drivers for the third consecutive year. Following a tough season last year, the team elected to replace Mike Krack with Andy Cowell, who now fulfil the role of team principal alongside his responsibilities as CEO.

After Aston Martin secured the services of former Red Bull star designer Adrian Newey as technical partner, the British engineer has started working on the team's 2026 all-new F1 machine at the beginning of April.

The Silverstone-based outfit has endured a tough start to its season so far in 2025, having struggled for pace on all kinds of circuits. Stroll scored a total of ten points courtesy of his sixth and ninth-place finish at the opening two rounds in Melbourne and Shanghai. However, his team-mate Alonso is yet to score points in 2025.

Following a rollercoaster start to their season, Aston Martin's team boss Andy Cowell conceded that the Silverstone-based outfit is not delighted with the performance of its car, and the British team would like to collect points "at every single race".

"I guess we're not happy with the performance of the car. We'd like it to be quicker. We'd like to be picking up points at every single race. The team’s very ambitious. But, you know, it’s a complex business – lots of interacting systems from tyres to aero and others. Getting on top of all of that is exceptionally challenging.

"When you look at the lap time difference across all the teams, it is incredibly close. So there are fine margins. Getting the tyres in exactly the right window and looking after them on both axles around a lap in qualifying is one thing, but then managing that in a race is exceptionally difficult.

"And in the world of aerodynamics – at our campus, you know, CFD, wind tunnel, but then you build a full-size car and put it on track, trying to understand exactly what the load is on both axles around a circuit like Bahrain, which is exceptionally rough, versus a high-speed smoother circuit like this, the aero response is different. You try and measure that, but you’re measuring it in a less precise way than you are in a wind tunnel.

"Piecing all these bits together – as Fred says – it’s remarkable how close all the cars are, given the different groups of aerodynamicists, engineers, management styles, tools, and a different group of people and drivers. We're in the last year of these regulations, and it's exceptionally close.

"We're a relatively young team trying to dial in new tools and trying to understand it and not just trying to survive but to really succeed. There are many areas where, if we could go back to the start of the year with the same car, we could do better at every event.

"That gives us hope. There are relatively easy things we can do to move forward, but some exceptionally complicated things we’ve got master as well."

Aston Martin's wind tunnel was completed in January 2025, and it became operational two months later. Asked when Aston Martin are going to start to see the first fruits of their new wind tunnel, Cowell said the engineers carry out work in their new facility for both their current and their next year's car.

"Since the Melbourne weekend, the wind tunnel’s been in use. It’s being used for both 2026 aero development and 2025 aero development. We’ve transitioned to this tunnel, and there’s hardware coming through that we’ll see at the circuit in the coming races.

"People often talk about how to tell the time when you’ve got two watches – how do you tell the aero load when development work has been done in one wind tunnel and then you swap across to the next?

"They’ll never tell you exactly the same. But we are enjoying the new wind tunnel. It's opened our eyes to a few characteristics. But then you’ve got to do the work.

"If you’ve got a new test facility that gives you a clearer view, a more representative view, you’ve got to then do aero development work – you’ve go to change shapes, make parts, understand, and then make full-size components to bring to the circuit and measure in this complex environment. We’re in that process, enjoying the new tool, and look forward to making a faster race car with it," concluded Cowell.