New wind tunnel gives Aston Martin F1 ‘important flexibility’

Aston Martin Technical Director Dan Fallows has said the Silverstone-based Formula 1 squad’s new wind tunnel will give the team “more flexibility” when it comes online later this year and is a “really important” step amid the outfit’s aspirations.

Since Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll brought the suad under the banner of the British marque in 2021, he has been investing his incredible worth into transforming the team from a midfield competitor to one capable of challenging for world titles.

A huge part of that effort has been funding a brand new three-building facility on Aston Martin’s existing Silverstone site, which will house a brand new simulator and wind tunnel.

Fallows is raring to go with those new tools, which will come online later this year to help Aston Martin develop its 2026 Formula 1 challenger.

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“So the new simulator that we’ve got is, you know, that’s obviously a state-of-the-art simulator, which is coming online later in the year, as is the wind tunnel,” Fallows said.

“Both of those are, you know, huge improvements for us.”

Aston Martin currently relies on using Mercedes’ wind tunnel in nearby Brackley and Fallows acknowledged how having its own aerodynamic testing facility will help give the team “more flexibility” when developing its cars.

“It allows us to do much more of our own testing in the way that we want, and it just gives us much more flexibility than we have at the moment,” he said.

“There’s been, you know, lots of examples of things that we would have liked to have done that we weren’t able to do. There’s a reason we spend millions and millions of pounds on these things.”

The huge investment made on the new Aston Martin factory and the facilities within it will work in tandem with several more key decisions made by Stroll under his ownership.

Fallows has been part of a major recruitment drive for key personnel that has ramped up once again in 2024.

Former Ferrari Chassis Technical Director Enrico Cardile will become Aston’s new Chief Technical Officer from the start of the 2025 campaign and former Managing Director at Mercedes AMG HPP Andy Cowell will become the team’s Group Chief Executive Officer in October.

These hires could be bolstered further with Aston Martin allegedly leading the race to sign outgoing Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey.

As well as this, in 2026, Honda will partner with Aston Martin to make it a full works entry, which will see the team cease its technical partnership with Mercedes whereby it received the Silver Arrows’ power unit, gearbox and rear suspension.

All the pieces are coming into place for Aston Martin to be a contender in 2026 and the new wind tunnel is just one part of that puzzle that Fallows says contributes towards the team’s “aspirations.”

He said: “It’s really important for a team that has the aspirations that we do that we give ourselves the right tools to have them to be able to move into that next phase.

“So yeah, incredibly excited about getting in [the wind tunnel].”