For Aston Martin, will aspirations become reality in 2024?
SILVERSTONE, England—In an attempt to move up the grid and challenge the top Red Bull Racing Team, Aston Martin launched their new AMR 24 Challenger on Monday. The goal is to improve on their near miss of taking the “Best of the Rest” fourth-place spot in the annual Formula One competition, which they lost last season to McLaren.
The near-miss was a big disappointment for a team that started 2023 with a bang. But then, halfway through the year, drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll suffered a downturn in results, often the result of Stroll not qualifying well and having poor racing results. But the team recovered a bit and almost made a significant comeback.
This year’s car is nearly a carbon copy of last year’s. Technical Director Dan Fallows believes that the entry should have more opportunities to close the gap on rivals in 2024.
Dan Fallows: We take the approach that Red Bull is absolutely beatable; that’s what we’re chasing after. We’re always looking to improve and learn, and I think when we look at the trajectory of last season. We gave ourselves some challenges, and we’ve managed to solve them. We’ve made changes all over the car. It’s very different in many ways, and the majority of the parts have changed on it, but it is really still essentially a strong evolution of last year’s car. So, we have built on the end of AMR23.
Alonso and Stroll retain their seats in a car that will use Mercedes engines, parts, and gearboxes for their entry, which hopefully can challenge everyone in the top three. Owner Lawrence Stroll is confident that will happen.
