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Apr.21 (GMM) Despite huge factory investments, Adrian Newey’s presence and rumours mentioning Max Verstappen, Aston Martin is arguably “the last team” on the grid.
That quote emerged from two-time champion Fernando Alonso’s mouth during the Saudi Arabia GP weekend, where after the chequered flag he admitted to exhaustion – with still not a single point to his name in 2025.
“Doing 50 laps of qualifying consumes you inside,” the visibly drained 43-year-old told Spanish media.
However, although Newey has been at the drawing board for approaching two months, the Silverstone based team will hardly develop the woeful green car at all.
“The car has basically no strengths,” Lance Stroll, who on Saturday broke the record for the most failures in a single career to even break out of the Q1 qualifying segment, said.
“Put the McLaren drivers in Sauber for ten years and they will have the record too,” the son of billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll added.
As for Alonso, he thinks it’s possible 2025 will be marked alongside his debut season with Minardi in 2001 as only the second time he has failed to score a single point in an entire year.
“But there’s nothing we can do because the rules change next year, and we have very good people in the team working on the 2026 car. The team is preparing for that,” he said.
“If the rules were stable next year, it would be harder to swallow.”
However, rumours are starting to swirl that Aston Martin’s brand new wind tunnel is actually producing results that do not align with the data from the old tunnel.
When asked in Saudi Arabia why the 2025 car is arguably even slower than the very similar 2024 Aston Martin, new team boss Andy Cowell pointed to correlation problems.
“We struggled last year differentiating between what the wind tunnel and the tools told us would make the car faster and what actually made the car faster,” he told the Spanish newspaper AS.
“When you have these problems and your rivals are bringing performance to their cars, you fall behind. We have a new factory and great tools, but we need to optimise how we use them to be more precise.”
As for why the team has basically given up on 2025, he explained: “There are 20 races left this year and five years until the next regulation change (after 2026). That’s why we’re investing in the new rules and the priority of our aerodynamic development is focused on 2026.
“We could go all in on ’25, we’d make progress, but we’d be in a bad starting position in 2026, which would carry over into 2027, 2028, 2029. We’ve had these conversations internally with Lawrence and Adrian about where we are and what we need to do.
“CFD and wind tunnel testing are limited, and decisions need to be made based on the data. We can’t just panic now and change what we believe in,” Cowell added.
Alonso lamented recently that Newey is yet to have any “big ideas” about how the 2025 car could be quickly improved.
Cowell explained: “90 percent of a car’s creation is in the factory, and that’s where we want Adrian.
“Everyone who walks past his office says that whenever they see him, he’s drawing on his board. He doesn’t go to meetings, he doesn’t answer emails, he’s just preparing a fast car. And we all support that process.”
As for any problems setting up the new facilities, Cowell also told the Spanish broadcaster DAZN: “Adrian is very complimentary about the campus and is very positive about the tunnel we have and the way it’s all set up.
“He’s also pushing us to improve the way we operate in the tunnel, the way we operate CFD, the way we operate simulations. For pretty much everything, Adrian has ideas on how to improve.”
