The old-school F1 obsession that Aston Martin is having to shake off

Formula 1’s current ground-effect cars are unlikely to go down as fond favourites for the engineers and designers who have worked with them.

Running ultra low to the ground, with super stiff suspension to keep ride heights at their optimum, they are tricky beasts to keep in the perfect balance window – as many teams have found out to their cost.

But there is another truth that has emerged since the current formula arrived in 2022, and it is that trying to develop and improve them is also not easy.

Time and again, a team will deliver an upgrade that its wind tunnel and CFD simulations suggest will bring a step forward in performance – only for it to fall flat because the data promise is not matched by how things turn out in real life.

Sometimes an improvement can trigger the return of bouncing, or lead to some other balance characteristic change that results in the drivers losing confidence, with a big impact on lap time.

That fact that three of the four top outfits – Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes – all had their issues with upgrades throwing a spanner in the works at various points during the 2024 campaign shows how challenging these cars can be to improve.

Key to charting a route out of such difficulties is accepting that what is needed to improve lap time with these cars is not what it was with previous rule sets.

Gone, in particular, is an almost linear association between adding more downforce to the car and an automatic quicker lap time.

Now, making a car faster requires a different mindset, where it is not so much about chasing peak downforce levels – it is all about making the car platform as useable as possible so drivers can extract everything possible. The interaction between aero and mechanical settings has never been closer.

This new reality is something that Aston Martin has had to come to terms with this season, as the team endured a second consecutive campaign where upgrades did not hit the mark and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll found themselves slipping down the order.

And, as it dug deep into the reasons why it has hit trouble, the squad has quickly understood that a previous obsession with chasing peak downforce is no longer fit for purpose.

This mindset has especially changed with the arrival of CEO Andy Cowell, who has transitioned into the…