Interview
Aston Martin lost the battle to Red Bull and McLaren: Here's why
- Ludo van Denderen
McLaren have provided a beacon of hope for all teams in Formula 1. The British racing team are proof that even in F1, a journey from the very back to the absolute top can be taken in a relatively short time. Aston Martin are surely looking to follow a similar trajectory, having recently gone in the opposite direction. Towards the top at the beginning of last season, now in the midfield. According to Luca Furbatto, the Engineering Director at Aston Martin, the decline can be explained.
After starting the 2023 season so strongly - with one podium finish after another for Fernando Alonso with Aston Martin - the green team failed to keep up the development rate shown by Red Bull and McLaren. Currently, the gap to the top teams is significant and Aston Martin are mostly competiting for the lower point paying positions. Furbatto believes there is a reason behind this.
Aston Martin need to spread knowledge
"Well, I think you shouldn’t underestimate the fact that as a team we are [not only] developing a car, but also developing facilities," the Italian said to GPblog and others. "Imagine you've got a budget cap, and let's say you can afford a thousand people. We're not at one thousand, but just to make a number. So if you are a Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, for example, you've got established facilities, it's a matter of fitting the car in the tunnel or running on the rig and so on.
"But in our case, we are developing a facility at the same time. So a percentage of the engineers are working on making sure that we've got state-of-the-art windtunnel, we've got commissioning in the tunnel, we've got, [engineers] in the facilities. And inevitably, I don't know, if you take the analogy of the thousand people, maybe eight hundred are working on the car and two hundred are working developing the facilities."
According to Furbatto, this is temporary and at some point everyone's focus can be entirely on developing the F1 cars. "I think that will get much better because building two and three are finished, and now we've got the tools available. So I think hopefully we see positive results in 2025. The biggest effect will be in 2026," said the Engineering Director.
This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton
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