Aston Martin has exceeded the expectations of the company itself at the start of the 2023 Formula 1 World Cup. Fernando Alonso's third place in Bahrain (and Lance Stroll's 6th, with a broken hand), plus 5th in Saturday's qualifying, speak for themselves of the competitive jump of a car that last year was seventh of the ten on the grid.
How can a car evolve so much in four months, and go from being 1.1 seconds behind the fastest (in Abu Dhabi'22) to just 0.6 (in Bahrain'23) hot on the heels of Red Bull? How do you explain this green miracle?
There are neither magic formulas in the F-1 laboratories nor is everything reduced to the hands of the Asturian pilot. Aston Martin played it last year by designing a 95% new car, starting from a blank sheet, ruling out evolving the 2022 prototype.
Thus, this AMR23 is the first fruit of the collaboration of his dream team of brainiacs, a team of top-of-the-line engineers signed in recent years of the competition: technical director Dan Fallows (ex Red Bull, hired in 2022), director Assistant Technician Eric Blandin (from Mercedes), Director of Engineering Luca Furbatto (from Alfa Romeo, signed in 2022), Director of Performance Tom McCullough (ex-Williams, Sauber and Force India) and Head of Technical Operations Andrew Alessi ( exRed Bull, signed in 2021).
Aston Martin's philosophy is simple, and common in the big circus: copy what works. “In F-1, everyone copies, but you have to copy well. Everyone copies from everyone”, says Joan Villadelprat, who was director of operations and sports director of Benetton Ford with Michael Schumacher.
Thus, Aston Martin's starting point has been to create a simple base car, and adapt, as the season progresses, the technical solutions that work best. They did so in 2022 taking inspiration from Red Bull's RB18, leading to Aston Martin's striking resemblance and being ironically called the "green Red Bull".
And the same practice occurred in 2020, when Racing Point (the precedent of Aston Martin, before the team was bought by Lawrence Stroll) assimilated the best of the Mercedes that was sweeping, for which it was sarcastically called "the Mercedes pink". The Chinese tactic worked for him: Checo Pérez went on to win a race and Racing Point was the fourth manufacturer.
The current Aston Martin is not free from suspicion of plagiarism. With malice, Helmut Marko said on Sunday that "on the podium in Bahrain there were three Red Bulls." Yes, they inevitably look alike, but not that much. According to the specialists consulted, it cannot be said that the AMR23 is a copy of the red bull.
“The grace of the AMR23 is that it is created by Dan Fallows, the man who spent 16 years with Adrian Newey at Red Bull, an engineer who knows as much or more than he does. What does it look like Red Bull? Well, you feel it, Mr. Marko”, comments Joan Villadelprat.
“You cannot say that the AMR23 has much of Red Bull or Mercedes; the basic concept is similar in all. At Aston Martin they have had the ability or the luck not to make mistakes. Because last year they screwed up a lot”, says Vicenç Aguilera, an industrial engineer who was president of Seat Sport and the Circuit de Barcelona.
Both analysts agree that the best thing about the AMR23 is its "efficiency" and "balance". "It's an efficient car because it has a lot of downforce (the grip produced by the chassis and wings) but it generates little drag (air resistance), so it's fast on the straights," says Villadelprat.
“I was impressed by the balance of the AMR23 in the race, whether it was loaded with gasoline or not. It has the great virtue of making the tires work well in both conditions. How is it achieved? With the design of the suspension and with the aerodynamic design”, analyzes Aguilera.
But why has AMR23 grown so much in such a short time? One of the keys is that Aston Martin, as the seventh team in 2022, has by F1 regulations more hours in the wind tunnel and CFD (Fluid Dynamics) than the first teams.
“Furthermore –recalls Villadelprat–, it must be taken into account that the wind tunnel belongs to Mercedes, from the Brackley factory, which rents it out”. He has also worked very well on the suspension dynamics, which is key to the little wear on the tyres.
Thus, the parents of Aston Martin have been sewing their patchwork of the best of each car "and have achieved a fucking package" -says Villadelprat-: the mechanical part is provided by Mercedes (the engine -the most powerful and resistant- and the gearbox), the aerodynamics drink from the Red Bull concepts that Fallows brought (“the sidepods are nailed to those of the RB18”); and the good suspension geometry makes them understand the tire very well (with a lower degradation than the rivals).
"And add to all this the hands of Fernando, who, although he only won two titles, showed that he is one of the best drivers in history", concludes Villadelprat.
