The team have launched the AMR25 with a focus on it being “more driveable”, “more predictable” and “more stable”, after suffering with peaky cars for the past few years. It’s a theme we’ve seen over this launch season so far – many teams are putting an emphasis on consistent and usable downforce rather than reaching peak downforce numbers.

Applying their learnings from last year and the AMR24, has led them to evolving each aspect from nose to tail including “more than 90%” of the aerodynamic surfaces. The AMR24 was subject to many upgrades over the year focused on addressing its inherent instability, bouncing and inconsistency.

After such an impressive and successful campaign in 2023, Aston Martin began 2024 with a confidence that quickly disappeared after the drivers struggled for performance and comfort in the car. This reached a head in Interlagos, a venue at which they’d stood on the podium 12 months earlier, as Fernando Alonso admitted he would finish the race purely to reward the mechanics’ efforts in repairing it following a crash.

Many of these issues with the AMR24 arose from its floor, and the team swapped and switched them all season and often over single weekends, experimenting with different specifications and setups – which from the outside gave the impression that they were lost.

But this car is aimed at becoming “more benign”, words used by their Aerodynamics Director, Eric Blandin, meaning more driveable, compliant and refined. So how have they done this?

The front wing has been updated in what the team says is a “significant evolution”, focusing on low speed downforce improvements, better car balance and improved stability through all cornering phases. Despite these improvements, visually it appears to be similar to its predecessor’s aside from a slightly smaller third element.

Aston Martin themselves say the most “striking difference” versus the AMR24 is in the bodywork. The AMR24 featured bodywork that was sculpted, curved and tapered.

In contrast, the AMR25 looks to be much flatter in a sense, with linear edges and less flowing curves. This is particularly the case for the sidepod which now features a large bathtub-like “swooping channel”, in the team’s words, on its upper surface, not dissimilar to what’s been seen from Williams this year too.

In line with this, the edge of the upper surface is raised in a linear way from front to rear while the engine cover also has a flatter surface atop its cooling cannons, which themselves are gently curved towards the rear. To accommodate these changes and work in conjunction with the new streamlined design, the team have reconfigured the radiator layout underneath.

The spine of the engine cover now features what the team are calling a “jagged, razor sharp” edge from the airbox to the rear that helps direct airflow over the car. They also mention the possibility of large louvres, which don’t appear on their new images, but likely will be opened up at relevant races over the year.

Frontwards, we can see that they’ve followed most of the grid now in adopting an overbite upper edge to the sidepod inlet.  Last year the design was almost inverse of this one, with an underbite of similar size to this overbite.

Moving to the floor and the team simply say this has been “revised to improve airflow” under the car, complemented by the sidepods and bodywork. 

They’ve stuck with push-rod suspension at the front and rear in a continuation from last year’s layout as the team say it provides cleaner airflow around the suspension arms but is also lighter and easier to repair if required, but they do acknowledge the benefits a pull-rod layout would give in terms of lowering a car’s centre of gravity.

The AMR25 features new brake ducts at the front and rear, again to help with airflow management and improved cooling.

The rear wing has been evolved to improve mid-corner turn in by limiting sliding according to the team, and visually we can see its edges are much rounder, and that it has a smaller cut out between the mainplane and endplate than is seen on the late season AMR24. Of course the rear wing is a bolt-on element that can change race to race, so we can expect this design to change over the season according to circuit demands.

Aston Martin’s new team principal for this year, Andy Cowell, says they are excited to get the season underway but are keeping their aims realistic given the expectation of a “tight and competitive field from the get-go”.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will shakedown the AMR25 in Bahrain on Monday, with pre-season testing set to get underway from Wednesday.