Formula 1 in 2025 is going to look very different with eight of the ten teams having opted to change their driver line-ups for the coming season.
Lewis Hamilton heads to Ferrari, Liam Lawson joins Max Verstappen at Red Bull and young Andrea Kimi Antonelli debuts with Mercedes.
McLaren and Aston Martin are the two teams with unchanged pairings, signalling a 22nd season in the sport for veteran driver Fernando Alonso.
Aston Martin have already made changes for Adrian Newey’s arrival which could help set them on a path to success.
Andy Cowell is in as their CEO, with Mike Krack effectively demoted as team principal into a lesser role ahead of 2025.
Krack said a few weeks ago that Aston Martin has a plan to catch Red Bull and Ferrari now that they are no longer considered an underdog project.
Aston Martin were ‘too ambitious’ with original F1 targets
The £1.6 billion-valued Aston Martin made the second-biggest jump of any team within the current technical regulations when they stormed to the front of the field in 2023.
They weren’t able to sustain that level of success though and struggled last season. Alonso refused to call 2024 a bad year for Aston Martin despite their regression.
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Speaking on The Race’s podcast, Ed Straw discussed how the team have had to restructure their plan for the future.
“It’s going to be key to that team succeeding,” he said. “There’s obviously a lot of ambition and they’ve had to modify their timeline for success from the original one they had because they realised that was a little bit too ambitious.
“All roads lead to 2026 now for Aston Martin they need for a big step forward.”
Can Aston Martin challenge for the F1 title in 2026?
Aston Martin believe they can win an F1 championship in 2026 but there’s a lot of work for them to do before they reach that milestone.
They were comfortably the fifth-fastest car on average last season and continued to drop off towards the back end of the year.
READ MORE: Fernando Alonso just used one word to describe his feelings on Adrian Newey joining Aston Martin
It was a worrying sign for both drivers who may have to accept that 2025 isn’t much more than a campaign for them to rebuild and focus on the following year.
Adrian Newey is already pleased with Aston Martin’s Honda deal for 2026 which will see them supplied by the Japanese giant behind much of Red Bull’s recent success.
The Brit already has a solid working relationship with them, meaning that the new power unit should fuse well with his design philosophy.
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