The highly refined sidepod design on the AMR23 is the most obvious example of Aston Martin’s “aggressive” development of its new Formula 1 car, according to its designer.
The new car was revealed by the team today. Its sidepods, which were already the subject of considerable development last season, drew immediate attention for the extent of work which has gone into them.
The AMR23’s sidepods are more steeply undercut than its predecessors. There is a more pronounced curve around the air intake, and towards the rear of the car they ramp downwards more steeply, clearly in the pursuit of aerodynamic gains.
But Aston Martin’s technical director Dan Fallows said less obvious advances elsewhere on the car also reflect the team’s “bold” approach to its latest design.
“The sideboards are quite a big area of difference,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “I wouldn’t say that’s been our majority focus, I think there are improvements and changes throughout the whole car. There’s obviously quite a lot that you can’t see.
“Underneath the skin there’s quite substantial engineering improvements to a lot of the mechanical components as well as the aerodynamics. There’s obviously a lot of other aspects of the aerodynamics, which I’m rather hoping you can’t see as well just yet.
“So while the sidepods are an obvious thing from a visual point of view, that’s one of the areas that we’ve worked on. But I think it does demonstrate, as you correctly pointed out, the sort of quite aggressive approach we’ve taken to this development of this car.”
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Fallows said the AMR23 is “very, very different from last year” during the team’s launch event. “Around 95% of the car is actually completely different from AMR22,” he explained.
“We went into this year, this development phase, trying to be bold, trying to be aggressive and trying to take on the lessons from from last year.”
He anticipates the majority of the car will be renewed again before the season ends in November.
“This is a fundamental basis for the development we’d like to do. It is definitely a step on last year’s car, but we always see that this is a platform to keep developing on.
“I would say you could expect up to two-thirds of the car to be different by the time we get to the end of the season. It’s as much of that.
“We are always looking to be ambitious about the changes that we make so I think we need to look at it. By the time we get to the end of this season, we’ll be looking back on this car and thinking ‘oh, that looks so old now’.”
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