The Silverstone-based squad is coming off the back of mixed fortunes last year where a super strong start to the season was followed by a period of difficulty as it struggled to get the most out of upgrades.
But having understood what went wrong with its development direction, the team has made amends for its 2024 car which is due to run at Silverstone on Monday.
The AMR24 has been refined in almost all areas but has some noticeable differences compared to last year’s model – including its nose and front wing aimed to help improve outwash.
As well as the aero changes, Aston Martin is switching to a push-rod rear suspension configuration as a result of it taking Mercedes customer parts.
Technical director Dan Fallows is clear, however, that the team has not embarked on a totally different direction.
“We’ve made changes all over the car,” he said. “It’s very different in many ways.
“The majority of the parts have changed on it, but it is still really essentially a strong evolution of last year’s car. We have kind of built on the end of AMR23.
“The obvious things that you’ll see that are different, are things like the nose and front wing. Bodywork will be different. But there’s also quite a lot of stuff under the hood, which hopefully you won’t see! We will obviously try and keep some of that under wraps.”
Fallows has also revealed that the team has worked hard to address the straightline speed deficit that Fernando Alonso pushed the team to sort out this winter.
“Fernando, as with both of our drivers, is quite vocal about what he wants to see on the car, and how the car is performing,” he said.
“And actually, that's the kind of feedback we really, really relish. That's exactly what we want to know: how they feel the car can go faster. I think that's what the great drivers can really tell you, is where the car is going to go faster.
“Certainly, straightline speed and making sure the car is as efficient as possible has been a big focus over the winter. I think that is something that we've managed to achieve on this year's car to make a step on that.”
Fallows thinks the critical area the team has focused on with the car is ensuring that it has the development potential needed to challenge over the course of the campaign.
“We’re very pleased with the step that we’ve made over the winter,” he said. “We think we have made a step on last year’s car, which is what we wanted.
“But, in truth, it is a short off-season and we were developing things that were relevant for this year quite late on into last season. So, the main aim for us is really to make sure that this car is a good platform to put those developments on during the season.
“We’ve seen – particularly last season but also the season before – the in-season development race is absolutely fierce and we want to be as competitive in that as we have been going into the new season.
“That’s what we’ve been really focused on, to make sure that we’ve got a good, stable basis for us to go and develop the car, to keep those updates coming and keep the performance coming.”
