Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell discusses the team’s new front wing, performance during the F1 Belgian GP, and the main area the team needs to improve.
Like many other teams, Aston Martin brought a new part to the Belgian GP. The team introduced a new front wing, which was used during Friday’s single practice session.
The new wing showed good results in practice, and the team opted to use it for the Sprint session.
However, the good form shown in practice did not translate to Sprint Qualifying, where the pace was missing, said Cowell when speaking in a print media session after Sunday’s Belgian GP.
“Spa is always difficult, especially wet Spa is tricky. Sprint races are tricky.
“We ran the new front wing on Friday.
“That proved to be a good test in FP1, which is a short test opportunity.
“Good to the point that we left it on for sprint quali and the sprint.
“The pace of the car in Q2 for the sprint didn’t materialise.”
Whereas Qualifying appeared to be a weak point for Aston Martin this weekend, the race performance was better, with Cowell noting that the team learned a lot.
“But then, when we look at the race today [Sunday], Lance drove a strong race on the mediums.
“The degradation was lower than expected, and we didn’t see much overtaking from anybody.
“I think we’ve learnt a lot.”
Pit stop timing
Another strong point proved to be the timing of the pit stops.
Aston Martin Driver Fernando Alonso was among the first drivers who made the switch to a slick tyre on Lap 11 of the Belgian GP.
Cowell feels that Alonso’s stop was perfectly timed; the two-time World Champion gained a few spots. Unfortunately their lack of pace saw him slip backwards later.
“We got the pit stops. Fernando’s pit stop call was bang on.
“We were looking to box both of them on that same lap.
“But that would have delayed Lance, who decided to go a lap later.
“That gives you the opportunity to see how your car has improved compared to the previous lap.
“Maybe both could have gone one lap earlier.
“But the power of the undercut is lost if you go too early.”
Bringing it back to Aston Martin’s new front wing, Cowell notes that its benefits will be more prominent at the upcoming round at the Hungaroring.
“With the base performance of the car, we’ve done a good experiment with the front wing, which will feature and benefit more significantly at a circuit like Hungary, compared with the low downforce circuit here in Spa.
“Strategically, we took the option to fit an engine and a wet-weather setup, but there were only seven laps of wet-weather racing.”
An operationally well-executed weekend despite a lack of points
Aston Martin’s new front wing was only used for FP1 as well as the Sprint portion of the weekend.
For the race, the team opted to mount a wing with a low downforce setting targeted at combating wet weather conditions.
While Alonso and Stroll classified outside the points, Cowell feels that the F1 Belgian GP was well executed on an operational level.
The team will now analyse the data gained to prepare for the upcoming race in Hungary.
“We took it off for the main race, just on the basis of thinking that it’s a wet configuration.
“The front wings were set more for the low downforce configuration to balance the car.
“It’s always disappointing when you don’t get points at a race.
“But when I look at operationally, the way everybody’s executed this weekend, I can’t complain.
“We just need to fly back home, have a look at the data, and then go to Hungary and see if we can get points.”
Qualifying a key area to focus on
One of the main areas Aston Martin will be looking at between the Belgian GP and the upcoming Hungarian GP is the team’s performance in Qualifying, where Cowell notes they are lacking pace. They were the slowest cars over a single lap on Saturday afternoon at Spa.
“We still need to look more closely at qualifying for us, both the performance through the sprint qualifying and Qualifying yesterday [Saturday].
“We feel that we’re missing something in the out-and-out qualifying pace. But we’ll go looking and see what we can find.”
