Adrian Newey has revealed details behind the his first car designed for Aston Martin ahead of the new Formula 1 season.
Aston Martin delayed the debut of the new AMR26 until the final two days of the Barcelona shakedown, intrigue surrounding car when it took to the track on Thursday.
The AMR26 racked up the least amount of mileage of all the teams in Barcelona, racking up just 65 laps, but the team were happy with its performance.
His first car for Aston Martin, the AMR26 has been eagerly anticipated, given Newey’s mastery of adapting to regulations.
Offering insight into the creation of the new car, Newey explained he targeted an “aggressive” approach to designing the team’s new challenger.
“We took a really close look at the regulations and what we believe we want to achieve from a flow field perspective to suit them, and from there started to evolve a geometry that attempts to create the flow fields that we want. It’s very much a holistic approach,” he said on Aston Martin’s website.
“I never look at any of my designs as aggressive. I just get on with things and pursue what we feel is the right direction.
“The direction we’ve taken could certainly be interpreted as aggressive.
“It’s got quite a few features that haven’t necessarily been done before. Does that make it aggressive? Possibly. Possibly not.”
Adrian Newey urges caution on competitiveness
However, Newey gave a caveat that the new windtunnel, delayed by four months may impact the competitiveness of the AMR26.
“In truth, with a completely new set of regulations, nobody is ever sure what the right philosophy is,” he said.
“We certainly aren’t sure what the best interpretation of the regulations is and therefore the best philosophy to follow.
“Because of our compressed timescale, we decided on a particular direction and that’s the one we’ve pursued. Whether that proves to be the right one or not, only time will tell. But you have to choose your path and get on with it.”
AMR26 design choices revealed
Revealing more of the rationale behind his design choices, Newey walked through his philosophy extracting performance from the car.
“It starts with the overall packaging of the car: where is the car carried over the wheelbase, where are the main masses carried,” he said.
Then it’s worked through to the front and rear suspension – the front and rear suspension both have their own very important part to play in that manipulation of the flow field.
“You’ve got the front wing and the nose shape, which are somewhat different this year.
“You keep moving through to the sidepods, and the treatment around the rear of the car, which is certainly different to what we’ve done previously.
“The car is tightly packaged. Much more tightly packaged than I believe has been attempted at Aston Martin before.
“This has required a very close working relationship with the mechanical designers to achieve the aerodynamic shapes we wanted.
“But I have to say that all the mechanical designers here have really embraced that philosophy. It hasn’t made their life easy, quite the opposite, but they’ve really risen to the challenge.”
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