Aston Martin F1 eyes a strategic shift as Fallows unveils key updates, prioritizing consistency to reshape their season.
The arrival of Enrico Cardile at Aston Martin F1 next year as Chief Technical Officer could potentially weaken the position of Dan Fallows, who currently serves as the Technical Director.
Clearly, Fallows is now flanked by a superior, which isn’t the best sign of confidence. It remains to be seen whether Newey’s former deputy will stay long at the Silverstone team.
In the meantime, Fallows remains the team’s sole Technical Director, experiencing a period that may be decisive for his future. This weekend in Hungary, Aston Martin F1 is introducing a major series of updates: a new front wing, a brand new floor, a diffuser, and a beam wing.
The goal is to significantly improve performance—to fully restore Aston Martin F1’s status as the 5th best team, or better.
“This is part of the normal ongoing development,” Fallows commented on these updates.
There seems to be a desire to downplay the impact of this package at Aston Martin F1…
“We like to bring things to most of the races we can. We have a lot of people doing tremendous work to try and add performance to the car progressively.”
These updates, the Technical Director continued, aim to end the inconsistency of the AMR24, one of the worst cars on the grid in this respect.
“But there’s no secret, there are some characteristics of the car we’re not particularly satisfied with. We want to make the car much more consistent.”
“We’ve seen that we have flashes of good performance, whether it’s in certain conditions, with the tires, or in qualifications. But it’s that consistency that’s lacking.”
“We don’t seem to be able to achieve it across different circuits. And the drivers are very clear about what they need, what they want. So, we’re constantly looking for solutions to help them. This is something we’ve all worked very hard on, people at the factory have worked tirelessly to develop this upgrade here in Hungary.”
“It’s been an incredible effort to get the package we have here today, which is again about trying to improve consistency, adaptability, the ability to tune the car in these different conditions and always achieve a similar performance, a similar outcome.”
“We want to ensure that the drivers, as they move from one corner to the next, have that consistency, that confidence in the car—because that confidence is worth so much lap time, and that’s really what we’ve focused on.”
Will Aston Martin F1 stop losing the development race?
But will these updates bear fruit? It seems that Aston Martin F1 generally struggles with development: last year, the team’s performance followed a downward trajectory. And the latest updates at Imola were a flop…
What can Dan Fallows say in his defense?
“Well, it’s a complex interaction not only with aerodynamics but also with how it works with the suspension, which is very complicated.”
“The aerodynamics under the flat bottom are very sensitive to ride height and certain conditions. On the other hand, we’re all trying to improve the performance of the cars, and sometimes you manage to get nine things right and it’s the tenth that trips you up.”
“So we try to make sure that every time we put something on the car, the new part produces exactly what we want in all conditions, but sometimes it doesn’t always work out that way.”
The advantage of the schedule is that Aston Martin F1 will be able to test its developments on two different tracks: at the Hungaroring and then at Spa the following week.
“These are very different circuits, but we can learn a lot here.”
“It’s about making sure we get what we expected. That would obviously be a big step forward, so to speak.”
“But the demands of a circuit like Spa are also very different. So even if these developments work at the Hungaroring, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will work at Spa.”
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Consistency vs. Performance: Aston Martin’s Bet Consistency vs. Performance: Aston Martin’s Bet
