Despite significant factory upgrades, the expertise of Adrian Newey, and whispers linking Max Verstappen to the team, Aston Martin remains mired at the back of the Formula 1 grid, with Fernando Alonso describing the outfit as arguably "the last team" in 2025.
The stark assessment came from the two-time world champion during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, where, after the chequered flag, an exhausted Alonso reflected on his ongoing failure to score points this season. "Doing 50 laps of qualifying consumes you inside," the 43-year-old told Spanish media, his fatigue palpable after another gruelling race with no reward.
Although Newey has been diligently working on designs for nearly two months, Aston Martin has all but abandoned development of its lacklustre 2025 car. Lance Stroll, who on Saturday set an unwanted record for the most Q1 eliminations in a single career, was blunt about the car's deficiencies.
"The car has basically no strengths," he said.
Defending his record, the son of team owner Lawrence Stroll added, "Put the McLaren drivers in Sauber for ten years and they will have the record too."
Alonso, meanwhile, fears that 2025 could join his 2001 debut season with Minardi as only the second time he has failed to score a single point in a full campaign.
"But there's nothing we can do because the rules change next year, and we have very good people in the team working on the 2026 car. The team is preparing for that," he said. "If the rules were stable next year, it would be harder to swallow."
Adding to the team's woes, rumours are circulating that Aston Martin's state-of-the-art and brand new wind tunnel is producing data inconsistent with results from the previous facility.
When pressed in Saudi Arabia on why the 2025 car is performing worse than its 2024 predecessor despite the obvious similarities, new team principal Andy Cowell pointed to correlation issues.
"We struggled last year differentiating between what the wind tunnel and the tools told us would make the car faster and what actually made the car faster," he told Spanish newspaper AS. "When you have these problems and your rivals are bringing performance to their cars, you fall behind. We have a new factory and great tools, but we need to optimise how we use them to be more precise."
Explaining the decision to prioritise 2026 over 2025, Cowell elaborated, "There are 20 races left this year and five years until the next regulation change (after 2026). That's why we're investing in the new rules and the priority of our aerodynamic development is focused on 2026. We could go all in on '25, we'd make progress, but we'd be in a bad starting position in 2026, which would carry over into 2027, 2028, 2029.
"We've had these conversations internally with Lawrence and Adrian about where we are and what we need to do. CFD and wind tunnel testing are limited, and decisions need to be made based on the data. We can't just panic now and change what we believe in."
Alonso recently noted that Newey has offered no immediate solutions for the 2025 car, lamenting the absence of "big ideas" for quick improvements.
Cowell clarified Newey's role, stating, "90 percent of a car's creation is in the factory, and that's where we want Adrian. Everyone who walks past his office says that whenever they see him, he's drawing on his board. He doesn't go to meetings, he doesn't answer emails, he's just preparing a fast car. And we all support that process."
Addressing emerging concerns about the new facilities, Cowell told Spanish broadcaster DAZN, "Adrian is very complimentary about the campus and is very positive about the tunnel we have and the way it's all set up. He's also pushing us to improve the way we operate in the tunnel, the way we operate CFD, the way we operate simulations.
"For pretty much everything, Adrian has ideas on how to improve." body check tags ::
