Ben Michell, Aston Martin’s head of performance optimisation, connected Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll in their approach to data.

Delving into figures, charts and graphs is a vital tool for improving performance in Formula 1, though how much of it a driver wants to see ebbs and flows with the situation, Michell explains. But, when it comes to current Aston Martin pair Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, as well as former driver Sebastian Vettel, they all like to get “buried in the data”.

Lance Stroll crunches the numbers like Alonso and Vettel

Michell has been part of the Silverstone-based team since its Racing Point days. His journey saw him work as a performance engineer for four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel, before transitioning to race engineer for Lance Stroll.

That was a role he held from 2021-24, before becoming Aston Martin’s head of performance optimisation.

In an interview with the Formula 1 website, Michell offered an insight into the relationship between driver and engineer. One of the key things to learn is when to fire the data up, and when to take a step back.

Fortunately for Aston Martin, Alonso and Stroll have no issues getting stuck in. The same was true for Vettel.

Michell said: “I’ve had situations where I’ve walked into the office and Fernando’s sat there with his laptop and tapping his watch going ‘where are you guys?’ and we’ve been on curfew!

“Sebastian Vettel was the same, Lance too, they’ll be there buried in the data. Sometimes for them that’s really valuable and gives them an insight and helps them. Sometimes it can just add noise that doesn’t allow them to drive as freely as possible.

“What you have to understand – and that’s part of the role of being a race engineer – is whether your driver is in a place to be receptive to that information, or do they just need to keep it very simple, and be able to just have a clearer focus to get the most out of the car?

“If there’s particular challenges there might be a driver who says ‘don’t give me more info, just let me drive the car, and we’ll get there’. You get a feel for their mood depending on their body language and how they say hello in the morning.

“That’s one of the key things you learn. Maybe today isn’t the day to show him loads of aero plots, today’s the day to just go, ‘right, we’ll go out, get a good gap on track and let you express yourself.’

“And there’s days where that’s the right approach, and then there’s days where you need to go into the detail more, and you have to learn that – you don’t always get it right, the same as in any relationship, some days you overstep but you talk about it and you learn from that.”

Aston Martin went into the F1 2025 summer break riding a major wave of momentum. Points have been scored in five of their last six grands prix, while Hungary was the strongest  performance of the season for the squad.

Alonso and Stroll were both in the thick of the Q3 action, becoming a dark horse for pole position. Alonso raced on to fifth, with Stroll seventh. That lifted Aston Martin to sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.

It is important momentum which Aston Martin will look to maintain on the approach to F1 2026 when opportunity knocks. With chassis and engine regulations being overhauled, Aston Martin will be a team to watch.

Working on the chassis is legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey, while the team’s Honda engine partnership kicks in from F1 2026.

How F1 2026 is shaping up

👉 F1 2026: Confirmed teams and power unit suppliers for F1’s huge regulation changes

👉 F1 2026 driver line-up: Who is already confirmed for the 2026 grid?

Speaking exclusively to PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher, Aston Martin CEO and team principal Andy Cowell provided an update on the preparations for next seasons.

“I think everybody’s enjoying the challenge of working on different, new, more adventurous components,” he said.

“The wind tunnel team has responded tremendously to Adrian’s arrival, where we’re trying an awful lot of different architectural ideas, which are bigger changes to the wind tunnel model than normal.

“The time from Adrian’s drawing board to a wind tunnel run is a third of what it was originally.

“You chat to the people, and they’re excited about it; they’re enjoying working on something different.

“They’re enjoying being on the battlefield as we make progress with all of this.”

He added: “We’re focused on running our own race to the first race. It’s a challenging journey for us.

“Working with Honda for the first time, this organisation, it’s useful that Adrian’s worked with Honda before, working with Aramco and on the fuel and lubricants, our own transmission and hydraulics.

“So there are lots of new relationships, lots of new technologies to get on top of, as well as the change in aerodynamic regulation. There are an awful lot of key elements that are being worked on. We are setting ourselves tough targets.

“If you set yourself a tough target, you tend to be fighting all the way to the end in order to hit those targets. If it isn’t a fight all the way to the end, then you’ve not set a tough target. So I believe we have set tough targets.

“We are fighting to hit deadlines to release information.

“We’ve got an amazing operations group that makes a considerable amount of the race car for us now, and we’ve also got an amazing supply chain that is reacting to our requests, and all those requests are to make more complex bits than we’ve ever made before in less lead time with an improvement in quality and precision.

“And it’s an exciting journey, quite frankly, throughout the business.”

Read more: Aston Martin’s ‘more adventurous’ wind tunnel work as immediate Adrian Newey impact uncovered