Aston Martin might have endured a lacklustre 2024 season, but they have reason to be excited with all of the latest developments happening behind the scenes.
Now that the 1st January has passed, F1 teams are allowed to start work on their 2026 chassis in their wind tunnels. Aston Martin recently moved into a brand new wind tunnel facility, which was described as the ‘most modern’ in the championship.
It coincides with the arrival of legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey, who will be joining the team from Red Bull in March. Having Newey’s genius onboard is a major coup for billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll, because his strength is exploiting loopholes in regulations.
For drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, it presents an opportunity to genuinely become title contenders, and there is one facility that might help them improve according to their simulator driver Daniel Juncadella when speaking to SoyMotor.
Aston Martin’s new simulator better than McLaren’s
Having recently moved into a new simulator facility, Aston Martin now has one of the most state-of-the-art sims used by drivers and Juncadella.
The team was previously using one they had bought from McLaren under their Force India guise, and now they have a bespoke model design specifically for their car according to Juncadella.
“The installation is beastly, I can assure you that it is better than the McLaren one that was there until now,” said Juncadella.
“McLaren has also made a new simulator that I have not had access to because I had to sign a contract for 2025 which I had not signed at the time [it came out]. So I did not work on the new simulator last year, but it is certainly a big step forward.”
How important are simulators in Formula 1?
Simulators in F1 are often thought of as driver training methods, but they go beyond just helping drivers learn new tracks and car characteristics.
As seen by Red Bull over the years, putting hours in the simulator over race weekends can transform race weekends as it enables teams to work on setups overnight.
Testing in F1 is very limited so sims can also be a great way for drivers to debrief after race weekends and understand where they went wrong.
Aston Martin often faced setup issues throughout the 2024 season, so the addition of the new simulator should help them get back on track and facilitate their planned title assault in 2026.
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