Aston Martin has seen significant evolution over this season, with CEO and team boss Andy Cowell revealing how the Silverstone-based squad is honing its potential.<\/p>\n
The former Jordan and Force India team has built itself up with a full infrastructure overhaul at its Silverstone factory in recent years, with the Lawrence Stroll-owned team investing heavily in top-level personnel and facilities.<\/p>\n
Andy Cowell: Everything is \u2018better\u2019 compared to 10 months ago<\/p>\n
One of those top-level people is Andy Cowell, with the former Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains managing director being convinced enough by Aston Martin\u2019s potential that he ended a near five-year sabbatical from F1 to return to the coalface.<\/p>\n
Last July, Cowell was announced as Aston Martin\u2019s Group CEO, succeeding Martin Whitmarsh, and, having started work in late 2024, appointed himself as team principal as the team went through an organisational restructuring to keep former team boss Mike Krack focused on trackside activities.<\/p>\n
As well as Cowell, former Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey picked up his new post as Aston Martin\u2019s managing technical partner in March 2025, with his first months at work seeing him concentrate on the development of the F1 2026 challenger for the sport\u2019s revolutionary new ruleset.<\/p>\n
Newey, as well as new chief technical officer Enrico Cardile, are working at a factory that has been significantly overhauled with cutting-edge technology and facilities, including a brand-new driver simulator and the newest wind tunnel amongst all the Formula 1 teams.<\/p>\n
Alongside refreshes of every step of the design, production, and testing processes, this is a team that, despite its longevity, is almost in a state of infancy, with new people learning how best to utilise all the new toys.<\/p>\n
But the process of learning has seen the team make significant steps through the F1 2025 season, believes Cowell, who offered a clear picture of where things have changed most since he took over at the helm in late 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s better,\u201d he said, when asked where he feels Aston Martin<\/a> is at when it comes to being able to fully exploit the potential of the factory and its infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it optimised? No, an optimised solution is only of value on that day; things can always get better.<\/p>\n \u201cPerfection is also something that you aspire to but never, never reach. But everything\u2019s better.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the approach in CFD, the approach in lap simulation, the approach to driver-in-the-loop simulator, the wind tunnel accuracy that we\u2019ve got, the data processing to bring all of that together to try and understand what next to work on is more thorough, the approach that Chris Cronin [chief engineer] and Mike Krack take at the circuit to do robust experiments to give the best possible answer, and working with the aero performance group to come up with good load measurements on the car.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of that is is more thorough, more precise, and the responsibilities within the organisation are clearer as to who\u2019s doing each step of that journey, who\u2019s got the responsibility for each step of that journey, so that everybody\u2019s roles are a little bit narrower, more focused, which then allows you to go deeper in your understanding, and greater expertise in each of the fields.\u201d<\/p>\n In an era in which on-track testing is negligible, a team can draw plenty of strength from the accuracy of its data correlation, ie. how components and, therefore, the car, react on-track in real life relative to what a team\u2019s simulations say should happen.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an area that has seen World Champion teams like Mercedes and Red Bull go astray in this ground-effect regulation cycle, and Cowell is confident that the raft of new infrastructure is being optimised to correctly match the reality when the AMR26 hits the track for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cHave we had a great first half of this season? No, we haven\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at the back end of the Constructors\u2019 table, and we\u2019ve had DNFs, so we\u2019ve got work to do to make sure that our engineering machine is more thorough with reliability, more thorough with data understanding, and delivers a greater rate of performance to the circuit. That\u2019s just a daily task, and will be a daily task forever.<\/p>\n \u201cCompared with 10 months ago, I think things are better, most of which was the infrastructure that was already being worked on before I joined.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, hopefully, I\u2019ve helped drive a focus on what does everybody do? What\u2019s your contribution along this journey? Engineering is such a complex machine, it\u2019s about breaking it down into each section, and then a relay race.<\/p>\n \u201cSo everybody needs to know what each step of the race is, and everybody needs to understand the style of data that they\u2019re going to receive and work with it, pass it on, and present in a format that people understand.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the work we\u2019ve been trying to do, and it\u2019s just to consolidate. We\u2019re in a process of, \u2018How do we consolidate that? How do we continuously question what we\u2019re doing, and how do we do it quicker without cutting corners?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all guilty, as human beings, of saying, \u2018I want to do that quicker\u2019, and we instantly think, \u2018Which bit can I miss out?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut that tends to bite you. So, how do we do it quicker without cutting corners?<\/p>\n \u201cIs that different tool sets? Is that improved teamwork? What is it? It\u2019s creativity to do what you\u2019d love to do quicker. There\u2019s innovation in that aspect of work, as well as coming up with a new widget that gives you 10 points of downforce.\u201d<\/p>\n Read More on Aston Martin in F1:<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49\u00a0Aston Martin\u2019s \u2018more adventurous\u2019 wind tunnel work as immediate Adrian Newey impact uncovered<\/a><\/p>\n