Aston Martin CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell revealed that his team have already started using their new state-of-the-art wind tunnel and are having fun with it.
Cowell replaced Mike Krack as team principal ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season, which did not start well for Aston Martin, who are languishing down in seventh in the constructors' standings with just ten points on the board after five races.
The AMR-25 turned out to be another disastrous car for Aston Martin, who claim they have high ambitions and are acting on those claims by building a new technical campus in Silverstone, which houses the new wind tunnel, while they poached Adrian Newey from Red Bull Racing, as the celebrated British engineer is now tasked with building the team's first single-seater under the 2026 F1 rules, which will be powered by Honda, who are now Aston Martin's works partner.
Cowell shed some light on the operation of the new wind tunnel and revealed that it is used to develop the current car despite the priority being on 2026.
He said: "We’ve transitioned to this tunnel, and there’s hardware coming through that we’ll see at the circuit in the coming races.
"People often talk about how to tell the time when you’ve got two watches—how do you tell the aero load when development work has been done in one wind tunnel and then you swap across to the next?
"They’ll never tell you exactly the same, but we are enjoying the new wind tunnel. It’s opened our eyes to a few characteristics.
Wind tunnel data should translate into parts
"Then you’ve got to do the work. If you’ve got a new test facility that gives you a clearer view, a more representative view, you’ve got to then do aero development work.
"You’ve got to change shapes, make parts, understand, and then make full-size components to bring to the circuit and measure in this complex environment.
"We’re in that process, enjoying the new tool, and look forward to making a faster race car with it," the former Mercedes engine boss claimed.
However, Cowell lamented that being in the final stage of the current F1 rules meant that Aston Martin did not have time to turn things around with their AMR-25.
He added: "I guess we’re not happy with the performance of the car. We’d like it to be quicker; we’d like to be picking up points at every single race. The team’s very ambitious.
"But it’s a complex business—lots of interacting systems from tyres to aero and others. Getting on top of all of that is exceptionally challenging. When you look at the lap time difference across all the teams, it is incredibly close.
"We’re in the last year of these regulations," Cowell pointed out. "We’re a relatively young team trying to dial in new tools and trying to understand it, and not just trying to survive, but to really succeed.
“There are many areas where, if we could go back to the start of the year with the same car, we could do better at every event. That gives us hope.
"There are relatively easy things we can do to move forward, but some exceptionally complicated things we’ve got to master as well," Cowell concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)
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