Will Aston Martin get the mid-season development right?

Photo by Dan Istitene – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images

Can Aston Martin nail the development window this season?

We are three races into the Formula 1 season.

While much remains the same from 2024 — Red Bull is leading the Constructors’ Championship and Max Verstappen is atop the Drivers’ standings — recent events have shaken the field up a bit. Mercedes is floundering, McLaren is strong, and Ferrari has certainly closed the gap to Red Bull.

Then there is a fascinating fight shaping up in the midfield, one that has Visa Cash App RB F1 Team in front at the moment thanks to a strong drive from Yuki Tsunoda in the Australian Grand Prix.

With so much on the line, and a short break until the Japanese Grand Prix, this is a good time to take stock of where each team stands at the moment. But rather than a simple review, we’ll look at the biggest question facing each team right now.

Earlier this week we took a look at Alpine, asking how quickly progress will come for a team desperately needing a step forward. We also asked whether Sauber can fix a pit stop issue that has plagued them in each of the season’s first three races.

On Wednesday we asked whether Williams would be facing a hangover after everything they went through in Australia, whether Haas had truly eliminated their biggest gremlin from last season and yes, just how hot the seat really is under Daniel Ricciardo.

Now we turn to Aston Martin, the fifth team in the current Constructors’ Championship standings. The darlings of the early season in 2023, Aston Martin has enjoyed a solid start to 2024, but it has not been a start on part with their dream beginning to the previous campaign.

Is that a sign of trouble down the road, a reflection on the other teams on the grid, or perhaps something else?

Aston Martin: Can they get the mid-season development right?

A year ago, Aston Martin was the story of the paddock.

The team arrived at Bahrain for pre-season testing in 2023 with a new driver — veteran Fernando Alonso joined the team to replace the retiring Sebastian Vettel — and a new car, the AMR23. From early in pre-season testing it was clear: Aston Martin had something to work with.

“I think they’ve made a big step,” Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner told F1TV during testing a year ago. “It looks like their concept of car has moved them forward and it looks like they’re not too far away. “Fernando [Alonso] in particular looks very competitive.”

It did not take long for that promise to turn into points.

Aston Martin began the year with a stunning double-podium finish — buoyed by Alonso’s podium finish and a strong result from an injured Lance Stroll — and early in the season the team looked to challenge Ferrari and Mercedes at the front of the pack. Alonso started 2023 with three-straight podiums, and five in their first six races, and Aston Martin looked like true contenders.

But by mid-season, the picture had begun to change.

Look at this chart from Formula1Points.com, which tracks the points progression from four teams: Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and McLaren. Mercedes is in grey, Ferrari in the browish-orange, McLaren in the black, and Aston Martin in yellow:

Aston Martin left the Austrian Grand Prix in third place in the Constructors’ Championship, just three points behind Mercedes. At that time they were 21 points clear of fourth-place Ferrari, and a whopping 146 points ahead of McLaren.

But you can see how their fortunes changed after Austria — or more accurately they flat-lined — while McLaren and Ferrari kept coming. Ferrari passed Aston Martin for good at the Dutch Grand Prix, and McLaren used a strong weekend in Qatar (which included a Sprint Race win from Oscar Piastri) to leapfrog Aston Martin in the standings.

This year, however, the start has not been as great for McLaren. While Alonso has finished in the points in each race, and Stroll finished in the points in Bahrain and Australia, it has not been the three-podium start the team enjoyed in 2023. As a result, instead of heading to the fourth race of the season sitting second in the Constructors’, they find themselves in fifth.

Now, the other teams have been working over the winter too, and some have taken big steps forward. After all, Ferrari and McLaren in particular seem to be on stronger footing than they were a year ago, which could be part of the equation.

Another thing to consider is how, in their own words, Aston Martin struggled with mid-season development of the AMR23 a season ago. “For me, [the mid-season] was challenging because there’s a need to understand what’s happening. You have to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Are others improving massively? Are we not progressing enough? You have to be honest in your assessments, ask yourself tough questions, form an understanding and then make sure everybody in the team also understands the situation, sticks together, and works through it,” said Team Principal Mike Krack this off-season.

“I said a few times, the goal for the rest of the season was to understand the car and reverse the trend,” added Krack. “I thought if we could get back on the podium in the second half of the year, that would be a fantastic achievement. We did that twice – but everyone still wants more!”

The team boss is not the only member of Aston Martin who is pointing to the mid-season development window being critical.

“We’re very pleased with the step that we’ve made over the winter,” Technical Director Fallows said at the launch of the AMR24. “We think we have made a step on last year’s car, which is what we wanted. But in truth, it is a short off-season. And we were developing things that were relevant for this year quite late on into last season. So the main aim for us is really to make sure that this car is a good platform to put those developments on during the season.

“We’ve seen, particularly last season, but also the season before, the in-season development races is absolutely fierce, and we want to be as competitive in that as we have been going into the new season. So that’s what we’ve been really focussed on is to make sure that we’ve got a good, stable basis for us to go and develop the car and keep those updates coming and keep the performance coming.”

So the biggest question for Aston Martin right now remains the biggest question facing them coming into the year.

Can they get May, June, July, August, and September right? Can they get the mid-season development right on the AMR24, something they missed a season ago?

The team believes they are on the right path, and the data bears that out, at least when comparing the AMR24 to the AMR23.

“What have we learnt about AMR24 across the first two race weekends and pre-season testing? In terms of quality, it’s a step forward. It’s also substantially faster than AMR23. We were seven-tenths quicker in Bahrain than a year ago and nine-tenths quicker in Jeddah.Our gains are what you might expect, with most of the field making similar improvements. This proves you really have to be at the top of your game at all times,” said Krack ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

“So far, the car is a little more difficult to drive than AMR23, but you will always take faster over easier. What we’ve been doing in recent weeks is trying to improve the car and the balance to allow the drivers to extract more from it,” added Krack. “We have updates coming continuously. There’s plenty to be positive about.”

Whether that positivity turns into progress — and podiums — in the mid-season due to the team getting the upgrades right remains the biggest question facing Aston Martin.