Aston Martin 2023 F1 car will have “significant differences”

The new model is the first to have been developed under former Red Bull man Fallows, who started work at the Silverstone outfit in April, and head of aerodynamics Eric Blandin, who was previously at Mercedes.

This year’s AMR22 was designed to allow for a change of concept, and it was developed substantially over the season. Fallows suggests that the next year’s car will represent a further step.

“I mean there is a limit to what we can do with the current rules,” he said when asked if it will look visibly different. “I know that new cars always have to pass my test of my children. So if I put them in front of my children and they say they look different, then they look different.

“They always say they all look the same, daddy! But within the envelope of the rules that we have, then yes, there are significant differences on the AMR23.”

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR22

Photo by: Erik Junius

The floor changes introduced by the FIA to combat porpoising and bouncing have obliged all teams to pursue bigger changes than they might otherwise have planned.

“The new floor regulations are not an enormous change in reality,” said Fallows. “But they have had a reasonable dent in terms of the downforce the cars are able to produce. So we’ve had to try and overcome that deficit as well as everyone else will do.

“I think it’s difficult to say whether some teams will be more affected than others, but certainly for us it was a reasonably significant downforce hit.

“But we’re obviously hoping for what the FIA is hoping for as well, it will help with everybody’s aerodynamic oscillations which we’re obviously very keen to get rid of.”

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Fallows acknowledged that Aston’s surge in form in the last part of the year, which saw it jump from ninth to seventh in the World Championship, indicated that the team was going in the right direction with development.

“It’s been a big factor in building the confidence for next year,” he said. “We’ve clearly started the year with a car that wasn’t where we wanted it to be, and we have shown that development, I think particularly in the second half of the season, we’ve really demonstrated that these kind of design principles that we put in place and the philosophies we’re adopting are paying off, and they’re going to pay dividends.

“So what we’re trying to do for next year is take a very aggressive development strategy, but build on the lessons from this year.”

Fallows says he was impressed by what he found at Aston Martin after his years at RBR.

“I was delighted with the level of the technical conversations that I’ve had ever since I’ve got here. I think this team has grown from something that was relatively small in size to, you’ve seen ambition, you’ve seen the size that we’ve now grown to and want to get to, in terms of how we’re operating and developing the car.

“And that is a journey, so what I’ve seen I can really add value to and what Eric Blandin who’s coming in at the same time, we can add that sort of clarity of purpose, that clarity of direction. I think that’s the thing that we’re building on.

“What I have seen is a hugely passionate, very talented group of people, some of whom have been here for a very long time and have a huge amount of experience.

"So the main thing for us is to make sure we draw on that experience and that passion, and don’t destroy that at the same time as trying to grow and turn us into a race-winning team.”