Aston Martin’s original layout for the AMR22 was one of the more unique designs on the grid, not only due to the high-waisted, undercut sidepod solution – which employed a row of additional cooling gills on its upper surface to help with the cars overall cooling needs – it also featured a high nose and central raised front wing section (below, right).
We already know the team quickly realised that there was more potential in another sidepod solution and made the switch to a downwash ramp design. However, it was steadfast in its resolve when it came to the nose and front wing, something that’s changed for 2023, as the team has a solution more akin to what we saw from Mercedes last season on this year’s challenger.
For 2022, Aston Martin took an approach that we’ve seen from the team before, a shortcut if you will, which means taking the best solution available and doing your best to emulate it and, in this case, that was RB18.
Now, while it did its very best to ‘ctrl+c’ Red Bull’s lead, it was unable to faithfully reproduce the design 100 percent owing to the internal packaging of the car, including (but not limited to) radiators, coolers, electronics and the side impact protection spars.
The main bodywork itself was as close as you can imagine to a replica of the RB18’s downwash ramp though, including the swage line that Red Bull had added at the second pre-season test.
However, where Aston Martin couldn’t make up the difference was with the inlet, as it didn’t feature the open-top, retracted upper leading edge of the RB18, something which the AMR23 does have. The team has taken ownership of the design concept and evolved it in several other interesting ways too.
Aston’s design appears to sit somewhere between the original design seen on the RB18 and the one used by McLaren from Singapore onwards, with the undercut beneath the inlet dramatically increased to improve flow both locally and towards the rear of the car.
While the AMR22 adopted that more bulbous central body and aforementioned swage line, the AMR23 has a much flatter flank, similar in many ways to the Ferrari F1-75 from last season, including the mini step undercut that follows the length of the sidepod.
This flatter side has allowed the designers to incorporate a more hunched shoulder and, much like we saw from Alpine last year, Aston Martin has incorporated a channel in the downwash ramped section – albeit the AMR23’s appears to be deeper in order to drive the airflow to its intended target.
The horseshoe-shaped cooling gill panel that was used once the team made the switch to the new sidepod layout has also been discarded, as the designers have moved to a topside outlet on the shelf-like engine cover.
The bold approach continues with their upper cooling cannon, which presides over the rear portion of the car and also features a hunched shoulder, also leaving more room below it for the bodywork to taper in towards the coke bottle region and allow space for the rear suspension components.
