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Aston Martin ready to follow 'McLaren example' not only with signing Newey
- Ludo van Denderen
After GPblog learned that Adrian Newey will join Aston Martin, next week, there is even more good news for Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll's team. Namely, the new wind tunnel will be commissioned, which should bring Aston Martin advantage in the medium term over competitiors.
Currently, Aston Martin use Mercedes' wind tunnel, something that is not ideal, according to Luca Furbatto, the team's Engineering Director. "At the moment, we're using the Mercedes wind tunnel, which is a good tunnel, but it's obviously not in the same headquarter. And we tend to run the weekends, which is suboptimal said the Italian, speaking to, among others, GPblog.
Soon, a visit to Mercedes will no longer be required. The wind tunnel is ready, so now it is necessary to get up being fully operational. "It will take maybe two or three months to get that sorted. And I think it will be ideally suited to start the development of the ‘26 car, which is allowed from January ‘25.'
McLaren already reap the rewards of new wind tunnel
If all goes well, Aston Martin are going to benefit greatly from this new wind tunnel. Furbatto cited McLaren as an example on how this could help improve a team: "Well, McLaren is quite interesting because their wind tunnel, I think I was there at the time. I think they've done it in ‘97, ‘98. And at one point, they stopped using it. They went to Cologne and they took the opportunity to redo it. And they went back, I think, a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago [back to their own new tunnel]. And I think they probably can see the benefit right now," he explained.
This article was written in collaboration with Kada Sarkozi
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