Aston Martin Performance Director Tom McCullough has explained why the Silverstone-based Formula 1 squad diverted from its initially successful 2023 floor concept this year.
2023’s Aston Martin AMR23 burst out of the starting gets last year as the second-fastest car on the F1 grid, scoring six podiums in the first eight races.
However, over time, its performance faded relative to rivals Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
That prompted a shift of floor concept of 2024, but Aston has seen its development rate fall further behind from a promising start and into the midfield scrap.
After scoring 280 points last term across 22 rounds, 2024 has only yielded 86 points after 21 events.
“So I think ultimately we got to a point where we weren’t able to develop that [2023 concept] much,” McCullough explained to select media including Motorsport Week ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
“That philosophy sort of came to an end really. We kept trying and trying and trying but weren’t able to add significant performance to that. So then you have to look at alternative routes and we’ve had a few different ones.
“Obviously you’re inspired a bit by what other people are doing as well.
“But yes, even at the end of last year, to help us understand the correlation side of things, we ran that earlier phase car again later in the year just to get the data to prove to ourselves in Abu Dhabi that it wasn’t still a faster car.
“So it’s always a relative game. Those first few races when we had a lot of podiums, a lot of success, we were still quite a long way from the fastest car.
“But other people were further away and we were dropping into that slot.”
Aston Martin hasn’t developed fast enough compared to F1 rivals
Aston Martin’s development confusion has been a key factor in a difficult 2024 campaign.
The Silverstone-based squad has been switching between specs of floor introduced at various points throughout the F1 season, finding one better suited for low-speed tracks, and another better suited to high-speed configurations.
A hybrid floor introduced at the United States GP didn’t bring about positive results and both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have exclaimed the team has been getting slower.
McCullough explained that isn’t the case, but merely Aston Martin is being out-developed by its midfield rivals.
“Formula One is a relative game,” he reiterated.
“We haven’t made the strides this year that we wanted to make, so the development relative to other people hasn’t been strong enough, which is why we’re struggling a little bit more to score points on every kind of track.
“At the start of the year we were pretty confident we could score points on any kind of track.
“The midfield’s got really tight, lots of teams very, very close, and if your characteristics of a base car don’t suit the track and other people have out-developed you, then it’s harder to score points.”
Aston Martin desperately needs to pull itself out of an F1 development rut, one that has seen Dan Fallows depart as Technical Director.
The Silverstone squad has three more rounds of technical exploration in 2024 to find answers for next season.
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