Aston Martin had a tough year having failed to deliver on their promise from 2023, when Fernando Alonso achieved eight podiums.
The team looked like the main challenger to Red Bull with Alonso coming close to dethroning their impressive run of race victories in the RB19, but Aston Martin struggled in 2024 with an inconsistent package.
Aston Martin spent most of the final races of the season in the midfield and not scoring points, with Lance Stroll only accumulating 24 points of their 94-point total for the season.
By contrast, the team scored 280 in 2023 and although they finished in the same place in the Constructors (fifth), they looked a far cry from where they were 12 months prior.
The 2025 season will see a continuation of the cars last year and you would expect Aston Martin to have made progress in ironing out a lot of their problems, but their pre-season testing was far from straightforward. Team principal Andy Cowell just tempered expectations when speaking to Soy Motor.
Andy Cowell says 2025 will be ‘challenging’ for Aston Martin
Aston Martin made a lot of changes to their backroom staff at the end of 2024, with Dan Fallows confirmed to be taking a step back from his role within the F1 team to make way for Adrian Newey.
Cowell was also promoted to team principal, replacing Mike Krack who will be taking on another trackside role from 2025. Cowell was bullish about whether Aston Martin was going to fix their problems, even with Newey joining the team in March.
“Everything is possible. It depends on how you prioritise and how much time you have got. Our objective is to make the impossible, possible. That’s what pioneering, high-performance organisations go out to achieve,” said Cowell.
“We’ve got this challenging year, much like all the teams, where we’re racing and everything is the same as last year. No change in the regulations in 48 races, so there is the aspect that the running order is same as last year.”
Andy Cowell to be ‘fascinating’ at Aston Martin
Cowell’s history in F1 spans back to Mercedes, where he played a key role in developing their power units which went on to achieve multiple world titles.
Former Mercedes head Ian James, who now works at McLaren as their Formula E team principal, believes Cowell will be ‘fascinating’ at Aston Martin.
READ MORE: Who is Andy Cowell? Everything you need to know about Aston Martin’s F1 CEO and team principal
The team has needed personnel who have won titles in charge and with both Newey and Cowell leading the effort, their assault on the 2026 championship should be credible.
Aston Martin has been told they need to replace Stroll with another driver such as Yuki Tsunoda if they want to think about winning titles, especially as Alonso is coming to the end of his careeer. Perhaps this might be the final cog that gets replaced in what is becoming one of F1’s most anticipated teams.
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