Aston Martin is rethinking its development approach in Formula 1 – Instead of focusing fully on downforce, the team wants to focus on balance in the future
Downforce is important in modern Formula 1, but Aston Martin had to painfully realize in the 2024 season that maximizing downforce is not the only factor determining the car’s performance. Balance has come to the fore, and that’s exactly what the team hasn’t found. That’s why the old-school approach is now being reconsidered.
The current ground-effect cars will not go down in the history of Formula One as the engineers’ favorites, because maximizing performance requires the car to be very low, which in turn requires a very stiff wheel suspension. There is little leeway, which makes it a challenge to get the car into the optimal working window.
The second difficult step is to develop the car within this narrow window. Upgrades are tested in the wind tunnel and with CFD simulations, but the simulated data does not always match the results in reality. Sometimes the famous bouncing back occurred, sometimes the car’s performance does not improve. McLaren and Ferrari have made great strides, Red Bull had a strong base to start with and Aston Martin?
New thinking and approach
Mike Krack’s team had to first break away from the old-school approach of prioritizing downforce. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll once had the chance to position themselves behind the top teams, but in 2024 they slipped further and further down the pecking order. Managing director Andy Cowell made changes as soon as he took office, but first had to learn a lot about aerodynamics and the like. At least he brought a lot of experience with him from Mercedes.
Krack immediately went along with the course, but also had to overcome a few hurdles. He says: “When you’re where we are, you have to say that you have to reduce [the downforce] to be better, and that’s a difficult decision, isn’t it? But that’s why we have people in the positions to make those decisions.”
According to Krack, it is not so easy to define goals and find ways to achieve them, because there are many tools that can lead to a solution. “Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. It’s always about understanding the car. We know what happens when we push too close to the limit, so we need to understand how close we can push.”
Balance is the main focus
Balance instead of maximum downforce and getting the best possible performance out of the package are the keywords that Aston Martin has formulated to be relevant again in 2025. “We haven’t found the sweet spot yet. In qualifying with new tires, the weaknesses are often hidden, which is why the cars are so close together in qualifying. But in the race you see the weaknesses of the cars, there is nothing left to hide. Then you can see what you have to work on.”
To work on the weaknesses, Aston Martin has signed big names: star designer Adrian Newey is coming, but won’t start work until March. The team could have former Ferrari chief designer Enrico Cardile with them before then. These two top signings from Red Bull and Ferrari bring a lot of knowledge about the current Formula 1 car with them.
Krack hopes to get Cardile’s information as quickly as possible. “I think it’s a combination of the new and the established people,” says the team boss. “It’s really good to have people on board who have experience with cars like this. When it starts, it will be a day full of questions and maybe we will adjust our goals.”
Krack knows how important it is not to lose any time. The 2025 Formula One season must not “slip through the team’s fingers,” he clarifies. “We have not performed as well as we would have liked for two years in a row. We have to be brave and try to solve the problems step by step. The cars have matured, but there are still big differences. Everyone has reached maturity, we have not. We have to catch up.”