Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack believes the AMR25 “looks encouraging in the wind tunnel” as the team aims to bounce back from an underwhelming 2024.

The Silverstone outfit have work to do having been a distant fifth in 2024 but with Adrian Newey not joining until March, the task of building the AMR25 has fallen to those already there.

Mike Krack reveals AMR25 progress ahead of F1 2025 season

Krack will be a guiding voice but the main role of designing the car will be Bob Bell’s duty who is temporary technical director following Dan Fallows’ reshuffle in November.

Bell will be helped by Andy Cowell and shortly Enrico Cardile but Krack already believes the new car has made improvements.

“When I step back to look at the bigger picture though, things are good,” Krack said. “The AMR25 looks encouraging in the wind tunnel; we’ve managed to tempt some of the brightest minds in the sport, like Andy Cowell, Adrian Newey and Enrico Cardile, into joining our team; we’ve got new facilities coming on-line all the time; and the project to build the team of the future moves forward at pace.

“There’s a lot going on in the background that convinces me we are going in the right direction – hence my confidence. We’re in a much better place than we were last year because we have learnt a lot – from both successes and missteps. We’re becoming more diligent, formulating our targets in a better way, asking more questions so that we get a better match between what we expect and what we deliver.”

In reflecting back on the 2024 season, Krack highlighted Aston’s mistake as an eagerness to improve the car, perhaps rushing through upgrades that ultimately did not work.

“The development direction has always been clear, and that’s crucial – perhaps more crucial than people outside realise – but we’ve failed to deliver the steps forward in performance we were expecting and give Lance [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] a good enough car.

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“There are important lessons to take from why that’s the case. Perhaps we’ve been a bit too eager to bring updates to the track. There is a constant demand for updates, updates, updates, and at times we were in too much of a rush. There’s something to take from that: quality not quantity.

“For next year, the immediate goal is to start the season in a better place than we started this one and, from what will hopefully be a strong platform, make good development decisions and continually develop the car to make improvements. It is going to be a special season because the switch to working on the 2026 car and the new regulations will come early. My guess is that we won’t see anyone bringing anything new to the track after the summer shutdown unless there is a big title fight.

“Our goal for the year is to come to Melbourne with a much faster and drivable race car. At the moment, we have a division between the top four teams and the other six, and we’re on the wrong side of it. Success next year will be to bridge that gap and turn the top four into a top five. If we’re back in the Premier League, back in that mix, that will be success.”

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