Aston Martin 'blind' in vital area despite spending millions

Adrian Newey feels there are two crucial areas of improvement needed for Aston Martin if it is to become future F1 champions.

Newey has only been with the team for three months in his role as managing technical partner but the famed design guru's impact is already being felt.

Over the years, owner Lawrence Stroll and his consortium have spent millions of pounds in the development of state-of-the-art facilities, including a new factory and windtunnel at its Silverstone headquarters.

From a technical perspective, Newey has noted there remains one vital tool where additional investment will be required if Aston Martin is to become a force in 2026 and beyond under the new regulations which kick in next year.

'Everybody's been very welcoming," said Newey, speaking to select media, including RacingNews365, in Monaco on his first visit to a grand prix since joining Aston Martin regarding his integration into the team. "It's been a very easy team to settle into.

"I guess my first job has been, obviously, whilst designing and talking to everybody, is to try and understand how the team works, its strengths and weaknesses, and kind of work with the strengths, and set out a plan to try and boost the weaknesses.

"I think it's fair to say that some of our tools are weak, particularly the driver-in-the-loop simulator. It needs a lot of work. It's not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool, and not having that is a limitation.

"We've got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be, but that's probably a two-year project, in truth."

Aston 'roots' need nurturing

Asked by RacingNews365 whether the current limitations of the simulator would prove a handicap to Aston's title aspirations, Newey replied: "It is a handicap. Difficult to say how much.

"Driver-in-the-loop simulators are used in two ways. One is as a research tool, and you're looking at how we're going to design the following year's car, how you're going to put all the tools together to better model it.

"The other, of course, is how you typically develop the setup of the car, especially for race weekends, so we're going to be a bit blind on that for some time.

"We've just got to try to use experience and best judgment. How successful that will be, time will tell."

Another area Newey knows only time will address is regarding the integration of the volume of staff employed to tackle the project.

The team has been forged from humble beginnings, notably Jordan initially before further iterations en route to becoming Aston Martin.

Following Stroll's takeover of the former Racing Point operation, the workforce has grown considerably. Newey recognises there is considerable individual talent behind the team which now needs to turn into a cohesive unit.

"There are a lot of individually very, very good people," said Newey. "We just need to try to get them working together, perhaps in a slightly better organised way.

"That's simply a result of the roots of the team of Jordan, that became Force India, that became Racing Point.

"It was, as such, always a small but slightly over-performing team, to now, in a very short space of time, becoming a very big team, that, in truth this year, has been under-performing.

"A lot of that is now just getting everybody to settle down and learn how to extract the most out of the individuals."