'Really critical' area identified in F1 upgrades battle

Aston Martin technical director Dan Fallows believes all teams are struggling to make upgrades work on their cars the deeper F1 heads into the current regulation set.

At the start of 2022, F1 returned to a ground-effect era with its cars, since when Red Bull has dominated, at least up until the early part of this season after Max Verstappen won four of the first five grands prix.

But even Red Bull has struggled to stem the charge of the chasing pack, notably from McLaren in particular, and also Mercedes as the Brackley-based squad has finally uncovered the correct development path.

Reigning constructors' champions Red Bull have hit the top of the development arc, according to team principal Christian Horner, and the introduction of parts has not had the impact as had been hoped.

It has highlighted the problems in trying to extract additional performance from cars that are close to the limit on pace and aerodynamics.

Asked whether it had become more difficult to bring effective upgrades to a car, Fallows replied: "Yes, I think is the short answer.
We've seen that with a lot of people. It's not just ourselves.

"We've had issues in terms of putting additional performance on the car and maintaining the same good characteristics, good balance, ability to run the car at certain different circuits, different ambient conditions.

"We have found it difficult to do that, to keep those good characteristics and to improve the overall performance. I don't think there's any secret of that.

"I think any team that says they have managed to do that consistently is probably... No, I'm not going to say that!"

Aston Martin 'fighting' with upgrades

After an initial year of struggle with the new rules in 2022, Aston Martin came out fighting last year, with Fernando Alonso scoring six podiums in the first eight races before the team faded, ultimately taking a wrong turn with development.

Alonso still managed to score two further podiums after the summer break but it emerged that Aston Martin found itself in an uphill battle from which it has struggled to emerge this year, with a high of fifth from the two-time F1 champion in the second race in Saudi Arabia.

Aston is languishing in fifth in the constructors' standings, almost 200 points adrift of fourth-placed Mercedes.

Regarding the success rate of upgrades on the cars, Fallows added: "Generally it's something that we're fighting with.

"I think once you know that that's the case, it's really a question of what are the most important things that you need to retain as you put these improvements on the car.

"And then, if you feel like you've degraded something, how do you then attack that area and get it back to where you want it to be. That's the really critical bit."