Aston Martin’s New Wind Tunnel “Opening Our Eyes” To Faster Car Development, Says Team Principal Andy Cowell

Aston Martin Team Principal Andy Cowell has revealed that the team’s newly commissioned wind tunnel is already providing valuable insights and paving the way for faster race cars in the future. The state-of-the-art facility, which is part of the team’s ambitious Silverstone campus, has been in use since mid-March and is currently focusing on aerodynamic development for both the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

“We’ve transitioned to this tunnel, and there’s hardware coming through that we’ll see at the circuit in the coming races,” Cowell explained during the recent Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. “People often talk about how to tell the time when you’ve got two watches – how do you tell the aero load when development work has been done in one wind tunnel and then you swap across to the next?”

The team, which previously utilized engine supplier Mercedes’ wind tunnel, is now enjoying the benefits of their own facility. “They’ll never tell you exactly the same, but we are enjoying the new wind tunnel. It’s opened our eyes to a few characteristics. Then you’ve got to do the work. If you’ve got a new test facility that gives you a clearer view, a more representative view, you’ve got to then do aero development work,” Cowell added.

Despite the promising developments in the wind tunnel, Aston Martin has had a challenging start to the 2025 season, scoring just 10 points in the first five rounds. Cowell acknowledged the team’s dissatisfaction with the car’s performance, stating, “I guess we’re not happy with the performance of the car. We’d like it to be quicker, we’d like to be picking up points at every single race. The team’s very ambitious.”

However, he remains optimistic about the team’s potential for improvement, given the close competition across the grid and the lessons learned so far. “But it’s a complex business – lots of interacting systems from tyres to aero and others. Getting on top of all of that is exceptionally challenging. When you look at the lap time difference across all the teams, it is incredibly close,” Cowell noted.

“We’re in the last year of these regulations. We’re a relatively young team trying to dial in new tools and trying to understand it, and not just trying to survive, but to really succeed. There are many areas where, if we could go back to the start of the year with the same car, we could do better at every event. That gives us hope. There are relatively easy things we can do to move forward, but some exceptionally complicated things we’ve got master as well,” he added.