Aston Martin: New Silverstone F1 wind tunnel has “opened our eyes”
The British team is starting to reap the benefits of improved infrastructure.
Aston Martin says its new state-of-the-art wind tunnel in Silverstone is “opening our eyes” as the team seeks to improve its troubled 2025 Formula 1 challenger.
Aston Martin’s new wind tunnel became operational in mid-March, a landmark moment for a squad that has been rapidly upgrading its infrastructure over the last few years.
The British manufacturer previously relied on Mercedes’ wind tunnel in Brackley, but now has its own in-house facility that is built to modern F1 standards.
Work has already begun on bringing updates to the AMR25, while the wind tunnel is also being used concurrently for the development of the team’s new challenger for 2026 regulations.
Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell explained there are some challenges associated with updating a car that was designed in a different wind tunnel, but says the new facility is giving the team a “clearer” and “more representative view” of where it stands.
“We’ve transitioned to this tunnel, and there’s hardware coming through that we’ll see at the circuit in the coming races,” Cowell was quoted by F1.com.
“People often talk about how to tell the time when you’ve got two watches: how do you tell the aero load when development work has been done in one wind tunnel and then you swap across to the next?
“They’ll never tell you exactly the same, but we are enjoying the new wind tunnel. It’s opened our eyes to a few characteristics. Then you’ve got to do the work. If you’ve got a new test facility that gives you a clearer view, a more representative view, you’ve got to then do aero development work.
“You’ve got to change shapes, make parts, understand, and then make full-size components to bring to the circuit and measure in this complex environment. We’re in that process, enjoying the new tool, and look forward to making a faster race car with it.”
Aston Martin has endured a tough start to the 2025 F1 season, with the team languishing in seventh place in the constructors’ championship after failing to score a single point in the Japan-Bahrain-Saudi Arabia triple header.
Lance Stroll performed admirably in the opening races in Australia and China to score 10 points, but has since failed to escape Q1 in qualifying.
Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso is yet to open his points tally this year, with a pair of 11th-place finishes being his best results from the opening five rounds.
Cowell admitted that “we’re not happy with the performance of the car”, adding: “We’d like it to be quicker, we’d like to be picking up points at every single race. The team’s very ambitious.
“But it’s a complex business – lots of interacting systems from tyres to aero and others. Getting on top of all of that is exceptionally challenging. When you look at the lap time difference across all the teams, it is incredibly close.
“We’re in the last year of these regulations. We’re a relatively young team trying to dial in new tools and trying to understand it, and not just trying to survive, but to really succeed.
“There are many areas where, if we could go back to the start of the year with the same car, we could do better at every event. That gives us hope. There are relatively easy things we can do to move forward, but some exceptionally complicated things we’ve got master as well.”
