How Aston Martin got a head start on F1 2025 car before Adrian Newey deal

Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough explained the team has been collecting data to inform the design of next year’s car over the course of the European season.

Aston Martin sit fifth in the Constructors’ standings at this stage, but hold a 218-point deficit to Mercedes in fourth as the top four teams have taken the lion’s share of what’s on offer in the F1 2024 campaign so far.

Aston Martin take chance to gather F1 2025 data ahead of Adrian Newey arrival

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Teams testing new parts before the end of the season is nothing new, but Aston Martin are looking further ahead as they look to maximise their 2025 efforts before the F1 2026 regulation changes take hold.

Fernando Alonso had hinted that tests of parts for their 2025 car may be taking place, with the team currently fighting for the lower reaches of the points.

“We will try different things also in FP1, not specifically for Monza, but also long term projects for the team and understanding of the car,” Alonso explained to media including PlanetF1.com ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

“So, still a very useful weekend. Then obviously in qualifying and the race, we will do our best. But in Zandvoort, which is a circuit that we had high hopes, we scored only one point, P10 – but races are always unfolding unexpectedly.”

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Performance director McCullough expanded slightly when told that Alonso had said potential tests had been taking place on the car, and he revealed that the team has been looking to gather as much data as possible as they look to inform the design of the AMR25.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at Monza, McCullough said: “We actually used Friday, the last sort of European phase [of races, ed.] where we’re trying to get a lot of data as we’re designing next year’s car.

“We had rain in Zandvoort, so we didn’t get to run the big front wheel rake on one car.

“So actually quite unusual for us, we’ve got a rake on both cars, and we dedicated their first 25 minutes of FP1 to just getting that correlation and aero data that we desperately need.

“We then spent the rest of the day doing quite large setup tests. We want to find some numbers to help us with designing next year’s car, and some of that’s been useful for the rest of the weekend, but it’s mainly to do with future stuff.

“We got all those tests done, which was good.”

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