The statement that Red Bull is “absolutely beatable” raises expectations for another massive step forward
ALEX KALINAUCKAS
Formula 1 is soon going to hit some major anniversary moments. Next year, the championship, along with Autosport, is going to be celebrating 75 years of continuous history. Three months from now, it will be 30 years since the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger on that awful weekend at Imola. But, in just three weeks, it will be one year since Aston Martin shocked its rivals by making what star driver Fernando Alonso calls a “once in a lifetime” car performance gain.
The Silverstone-based squad that had just finished seventh in the 2022 constructors’ championship made a step worth over a second a lap in one off-season. It resulted in Alonso’s first race alongside inevitable team stalwart Lance Stroll finishing with the Spaniard standing on the podium alongside the dominant Red Bull drivers (with a little help from poor Ferrari reliability for Charles Leclerc).
Aston ultimately slipped back in the pack in an almost exact mirror of McLaren’s rise to lead the chase behind Red Bull by 2023’s end, all around the massive Mercedes/Ferrari entanglement in the fight for what became second and third places in the constructors’ points ahead of McLaren’s fourth and Aston’s fifth.
But now, the expectation is of the green team making another massive step forwards. On Monday, it revealed its AMR24 challenger, which Aston technical director Dan Fallows calls “essentially a strong evolution of last year’s car”. The main visible changes include refined bodywork, featuring more sculpted sidepods and engine cover over its predecessor, along with push-rod rear suspension (see page 22). Pleasingly, the team’s take on a British Racing Green livery remains, which does not over-indulge in exposed carbon to save weight.
Fallows adds that “we have kind of built on the end of AMR23”, in terms of the specification Aston was running by last year’s climax, plus the update path it committed to in the season run-in. This was a series of set-up experiments, plus a new floor at the Mexican race.
Finally, Fallows also promises “quite a lot of stuff [that’s different] under the hood, which hopefully you won’t see… we will obviously try and keep some of that under wraps”.
Given where Aston ended 2023,
