Aston Martin designers are working on developments designed to increase the working range of the AMR23 car.
Fernando Alonso has landed Aston Martin six podiums from the opening eight races of 2023 and arguably only a poor strategy call in Monaco cost him a chance of victory.
That proved to be the team’s strongest weekend of the season and preceded its weakest at the Spanish Grand Prix, where Alonso was only seventh, one spot back from team-mate Lance Stroll.
According to the team’s technical director, Dan Fallows, that highlights the need to not only add performance to the car, but open its operating window so it is stronger in a waider variety of circumstances and circuits.
“Obviously, we want to put more performance on the car in general, but we’ve seen over the last couple of events particularly that there’s some circuits which suit it more, and some circuits which don’t suit it quite as much,” explained Fallows.
“We’ve looked at concentrating on broadening that operating window of the car.
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“That’s particularly what we’re focused on with these updates,” he added of the developments that found their way onto the Aston Martin in Canada.
Aston Martin had a new engine cover and floor in Montreal, with some event-specific cooling louvres too.
The squad has tended to drip updates onto the car, rather than introducing a significant step as seen by the likes of Mercedes, Williams, and, soon, McLaren.
The new parts in Canada, due to their prominent nature on the car, were especially conspicuous.
“We have been trying to produce updates for the majority of the races,” Fallows explained.
“We have this sort of idea of continual improvement, and that’s what we’re aiming at, really.
“So we have we have focused on other areas of the car before, but yet from the sort of visual, I suppose the actual physical size of it, this is physically our biggest update.”
The intent is to iron out the low points in its performance matrix, to eliminate events like Spanish Grand Prix where the car simply didn’t work around Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
With that, it’s hoped that the gap to Red Bull will close, a suggestion Fallows is cautious about making at this stage.
“Obviously, Monaco, we were, we were very close. In Spain, less so,” he reasoned.
“But I think, in truth, we clearly see that there is a gap to Red Bull, there has been all season.
“What’s also really important for us is how nip and tuck it is with Mercedes and Ferrari.
“It’s exciting, on the one hand, I suppose, but I think it’s particularly great for the fans to see that that kind of battle going on for the second place at the moment, but really, from our point of view, we have to focus on our own performance, making sure the car is as performant as possible at every track that we go to.”
Aston Martin sits third in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull and Mercedes after eight events.
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