F1 Tech | Why Aston Martin still needs to make a step forward despite upgrades

The first half of 2025 was more than disappointing for Aston Martin, with only 16 points scored during the first six weekends. The AMR25 suffered a lot in the high-speed corners compared to competitors, especially on tracks like Saudi Arabia and Suzuka.

Moreover, the tyre management on asphalts with high degredation was less than ideal, as the tyres started dropping off massively after a few laps, consequently depriving Alonso and Stroll of a competitive car on race days.

To improve this situation, the team decided to bring a first and major upgrade package at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, where a new floor and upper bodywork debuted. These new components were the very first ones to be tested in the new wind tunnel, which has been build over the last year and a half as part of the big factory’s development program of the Silverstone team. 

The new elements immediately brought a massive step forward in terms of car’s performance: already in Barcelona, Alonso was able to get into Q3, proving that the car’s potential had grown in the high speed sections mainly due to the additional downforce generated by the new bodywork and floor introduced in Imola.

The race on the following day also proved the great step in tyre management on a highly stressing asphalt: he was able to finish the race in ninth place, scoring his first points since the beginning of the season.

The positive momentum kept also in the following rounds, with the Spanish driver able to finish in P7 both in Canada and Austria, showing off the good progress made by the Silverstone-based team: an encouraging performance for 2026.

To further improve the AMR25’s performance, the team decided to introduce a new floor for the British Grand Prix: the new component was a profound re-design of the floor ceiling underneath the car, which mainly aimed at keeping the vortices generated alive for the whole floor length, improving the downforce generated at a good drag cost.

The new floor, which was tested in FP1 by Alonso, was then also fitted on Stroll’s car from FP2 onwards, to gather more data. The floor was kept on both cars for the whole weekend and the results seemed promising: on Saturday, Alonso was able to get into Q3, eventually finishing in P9.

After the good performance in qualifying, the Asturian expressed his view on the new components: “Upgrades were tested yesterday with a slight advantage to the new package, but small, so it took a little bit of time to really analyse the data and see the differences.”

His words were proof that the team still probably had a little doubt on the effective impact of the new parts on the car’s performance, with the progress seeming smaller than expected.

The scenario, however, completely changed on Sunday: due to the weather conditions during the race, Stroll (who started the race in P17) was able to get to P3 thanks to a perfect strategy, but as soon as the track started to dry and the intermediates started degrading, he lost places ground to Hulkenberg, Hamilton and Verstappen, proving that the race pace of the updated AMR25 was still slow.

After the race, Team Principal Andy Cowell exposed the AMR25’s main limitation during the race: “I think we had a lot of degradation and couldn't really fight with that kind of degradation. […] I think with the degradation we have, we couldn't have gotten a better result, honestly. I was barely able to stay on the track at the end with the soft tyre because it was just completely grained. And also the intermediate tyre just losing 20 seconds of race time compared to the Sauber at one point in the race. Just huge degradation.”

These words were the exact proof that Aston Martin still need to do a big step forward in terms of car’s development for next year, if they want to fight with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull ahead. The arrival of Adrian Newey could be a huge asset for the British team, but the gap that needs to be filled is everything but small.