F1 News: Aston Martin Plotting An "Aggressive Development Plan" For 2024
Following three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain, Aston Martin is content with the compliance and performance of its new 2024 AMR24 F1 car. However, Technical Director Dan Fallows emphasizes the need for the team to progress by keeping pace with the introduced upgrades to the car.
Key Takeaways:
- Aston Martin is satisfied with the new 2024 AMR24 F1 car's compliance and performance after Bahrain pre-season testing.
- Technical Director Dan Fallows stresses the need for aggressive in-season development to avoid repeating the previous season's decline against rivals with impactful upgrades.
- The team aims to close the gap to the fastest cars on the grid, with a focus on maintaining positive momentum from the end of the previous season into 2024.
The Silverstone outfit is determined to avoid a recurrence of the errors made last year. The AMR23 exhibited impressive pace in the initial part of the season but gradually lost ground as competing teams, including McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari, introduced impactful upgrades to their cars.
Thus, Fallows suggested that the team will be more aggressive in rolling out potent upgrades that could help maintain or improve positions on the grid this year. He told the media:
"We are looking at quite an aggressive development plan, and we're most keen that we do compete in the in-season development [race].
"That has been something that you absolutely have to do if you want to be a top team and that's what we want to do.
"Once we get to the first race, we'll get a idea of exactly where we are in the relative pecking order and then we'll know what targets we need to hit, but for us, it is all about: 'What is the gap to the fastest car, and how do we close that as soon as possible?'
"We've got two years left of this regulation set so there is still time for people to catch up [to Red Bull]."
The technical director further mentioned that the competition on the grid intensified towards the conclusion of the previous year, during which the team was satisfied with the AMR23. Now, the goal is to carry and maintain that momentum into the 2024 season. He added:
"We saw the field get a lot closer at the end of last season, it was starting to get very tight.
"I can't speak for what they're doing, but obviously they felt they needed to make a radical change and from our point of view, we were quite happy with the trajectory of the car towards the end of last season.
"We want to carry that on into this season, making sure that we have a good platform to develop through the season, which is what we're hoping for."
Aston Martin Press Image