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

It is 2023, and in five races, Aston Martin Four podiums have already scored 102 points in finish and standing, installing themselves as the second best team behind the grid. red BullTwo years later, and again, in the five races – that Tally has reduced more half, the British team has scored 10 points.

This is a clear indication of regression from the silverstone-based teamAlthough it is true that Aston Martin is already looking ahead of 2026 with his new car and rules, which gives the organization an opportunity to start from scratches, but 2025 cannot be considered as a “wasted” year.

The team is still under construction in Aston, many new engineers have been included in recent years, and the expectation of coming on board in the coming months is more important figures. In that case, 2025 becomes an underlying adjustment period to carry all the pieces to the sink, something that cannot be obtained in just a few weeks.

It is being said, the most dangerous figure since 2025 is that after five race weekends, Aston Martin is the team that has improved the least compared to the previous season, which has only two and a half tenth advantage compared to 2024 – about one -third of the improvement achieved by the team at the nineth place, the red bull, which is at the ninth place.

Although these numbers should not be taken as absoluteness, the revival of the tracks in both China and Japan reduced the lap time significantly. But the average data in all teams actually reveals an even more clear picture: Aston was the team with the lowest improvement in four of the five races so far with the exception of Australia – where Has was caught by the issue of an unexpected bounce.

This trend froze more when focusing on a specific race like Saudi Arabia, where the AMR25 was the only car that failed to defeat last year’s lap time. Undoubtedly, rising temperatures played a role, but it is also true that Pirelli brought a soft compounds at the end of that week, offering more grip in one lap.

Nevertheless when you are the only team that does not improve your 2024 lap time – and if you are really half the second slow – the situation is worrisome, especially looking towards the future, because there are similar issues to follow with more races.

What is behind conflicts?

To understand the root of these conflicts, you need to withdraw a step. AMR23 proved to be a car that always walked with high-deployment setup-its strength in a low-speed corners, although it paid the price in straight and fast corners.

Engineers tried to fix those weaknesses in the 2024 season car (AMR24), both improved straight line performances, especially with DRS Open, and speed in sharp corners. The agreement did not pay, however, due to a partially a disturbing development process, which looked at Aston back and forth.

With AMR25, Aston himself withdrew one step back, returning to the basics in the hope of re -achieving the performance in the slow corners, helped by a re -designed front wing aimed at correcting the understanding. But the AMR25 has not fully adopted this new approach, despite the change in the direction made by engineers in winter.

“I would say that the first four Grands Prix, a slow speed corner was probably our weakest part of the track. But there are some concerns and some other items that we are facing from time to time. We are working hard to improve those people. Zedah has a very high-speed corner,” said Fernando Alonso.

In an attempt to increase aerodynamic load engineers, AMR24 is very sensitive-it is difficult to drive many times-leading the team, for example, to leave and leave some new parts in the old side, to help the more effective people to balance the downforce-to-available. This essentially forces Aston to spend the rest of the season between two different floor designs: one for slow tracks and the other for sharp ones.

One of the main goals for 2025 was to disturb the car more – something that has seen some progress – but at the same time, it still lacks the required increase in the downforce to maintain with the speed of development of rivals. This may mean that Aston Martin needs to maintain a more rear-loaded setup, both to improve balance and compensate for a possible decrease of downforce. But Aston had one of the highest-downfores rear wings in Jeddah, which was clinging to a solution similar to last year, while most teams opted for lower-downfores 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 tried to overcome a campaign, which has, so far, has brought very little satisfaction.

After Saudi Arabia GP, Aston Martin’s Team Principal Andy Cowell said, “Can we get out of the car more? I think we can.” “I think there are many areas where we look back in the previous race this year and we can get out of the car. Is it enough to win the race? No, but is it where we can move a little further? Yes it is.”

NEWEY AMR25 will not work, but can he still make an impact?

Cowell added to his post-race interview, “We are learning about this car and we are learning about all the new equipment that we have found in the factory and how to take things forward.” The principal of the team has specifically mentioned features as one of the major elements required for the team to improve and progress on the ’25 car ‘. This year, Eston Martin inaugurated his new wind tunnel, which went into operation around the Australian GP after a long test period.

Although the Adrian Navy-officially joined the team last month-2025 would not be involved in the development of the car, Cowle insisted that his input would be important in improving and implementing every piece of new tooling and equipment, which Aston has invested in recent sessions, with the target of becoming a championship team in future. The problem is that the time is running out and no result we can see, we cannot come until 2026.