Inside Aston’s struggles: Why the team has lost progress since 2024

It’s 2023, and five races in, Aston Martin has already secured four podium finishes and 102 points in the standings, establishing itself as the second-best team on the grid behind Red Bull. Two years later, and again, five races in — that tally has more than halved, with the British team earning a measly 10 points.

It’s a clear sign of regression from the Silverstone-based team. Although it’s true that Aston Martin is already looking ahead to 2026 with its new car and regulations which offer the outfit the opportunity to start from scratch, but 2025 cannot be treated as a “wasted” year.

The team at Aston is still under construction, with many new engineers joining in recent years, and more key figures expected to come on board in the coming months. In that case, 2025 becomes a built-in adjustment period to get all the pieces moving in sync, something that cannot be achieved in just a few weeks.

That being said, the most alarming statistic from 2025 thus far is that after five race weekends, Aston Martin is the team that has improved the least compared to last season, with an average gain of just two and a half tenths compared to 2024 — nearly a third of the improvement achieved by the team in ninth place, Red Bull, which has improved by six tenths.

These numbers shouldn’t be taken as absolutes though, as the resurfacing of tracks in both China and Japan significantly lowered lap times. But averaging data across all teams actually reveals an even clearer picture: Aston has been the team with the least improvement in four of the five races held so far, with the exception of Australia — where Haas was caught off guard by an unexpected bouncing issue.

This trend is further solidifed when focusing on specific races, like in Saudi Arabia, where the AMR25 was the only car that failed to beat last year’s lap time. Undoubtedly, rising temperatures played a role, but it’s also true that Pirelli had brought softer compounds that weekend, offering more grip over a lap.

Yet when you’re the only team that hasn’t improved on your 2024 lap time — and if you’re actually half a second slower — the situation is worrying, especially looking towards the future, since with more races there are sure to be similar issues to follow.

What’s behind the struggles?

To understand the root of these struggles, you need to take a step back. The AMR23 proved to be a car that always ran with high-downforce setups — its strength in low-speed corners, although it paid the price on straights and in fast corners.

Engineers tried to correct those weaknesses in the 2024 season car (AMR24), improving both straight-line performance, especially with DRS open, and speed in fast corners. The compromise didn’t pay off, though, partly due to a troubled development process, which saw Aston fall further behind.

With the AMR25, Aston itself took a step back, returning to basics in hopes of regaining performance in slow corners, aided by a redesigned front wing aimed at correcting understeer. But the AMR25 doesn’t seem to have fully embraced this new approach, despite the shift in direction made by engineers over the winter.

“I would say that the first four Grands Prix, the slow-speed corners were probably our weakest part of the track. But there are also some concerns as well of bouncing and some other stuff that we are facing from from time to time. We are working hard on improving those. Here in Jeddah, there’s a lot of high speed corners,” Fernando Alonso said ahead of the Jeddah race.

In an attempt to increase aerodynamic load engineers made the AMR24 too sensitive — at times difficult to drive — which even led the team, for example, to backtrack and abandon some new parts in favor of older, more effective ones to help in balancing the downforce-to-driveability. It essentially forced Aston to spend the rest of the season alternating between two different floor designs: one for slower tracks and another for faster ones.

One of the main goals for 2025 was to make the car more drivable — something that has seen some progress — but at the same time, it still lacks the necessary increase in downforce to keep up with rivals’ development pace. It could mean that Aston Martin needs to maintain a more rear-loaded setup, both to improve balance and compensate for a possible lack of downforce. But Aston had one of the highest-downforce rear wings in Jeddah, sticking to a solution very similar to last year’s, while most teams opted for lower-downforce wings this season.

After the first difficult five races, Aston Martin held a meeting with the team’s top management to decide which development path to follow for 2026, while also trying to salvage a campaign that, so far, has brought very little satisfaction.

“Can we get more out of the car? Yes, I think we can,” said Andy Cowell, team principal of Aston Martin after the Saudi Arabian GP. “I think there are many areas where we look back over the last races this year and we can get more out of the car. Is it enough to win races? No, but is it where we can push forward a bit more? Yes it is.”

Newey won’t work on the AMR25, but can he still have an impact?

Cowell added in his post-race interview, “We’re learning about this car and we’re learning about all the new equipment that we’ve got in the factory and how to push things forward.” The team principal specifically mentions facilities as one of the key elements needed for the team to make improvements and progress on the ’25 car. This year, Aston Martin inaugurated its new wind tunnel, which went into operation around the Australian GP after a lengthy testing period.

Although Adrian Newey — who officially joined the team last month — will not be directly involved in the development of the 2025 car, Cowell emphasized that his input will be crucial in improving and implementing every piece of new tooling and equipment that Aston has invested in over recent seasons, with the goal of becoming a championship-winning team in the future. The problem is that time is running out and any results we might see, might not arrive until 2026.