Dan Fallows feels Aston Martin remains an exciting project in F1 especially with top personnel joining them one by one.
Ever since the takeover of Lawrence Stroll, Aston Martin has seen list of top end hiring to bolster the F1 team’s technical and administrative departments. Fallows is among the list of people that have joined the Silverstone-based outfit in recent years.
The likes of Bob Bell, Luca Furbatto, Enrico Cardile are few more names. They even roped in Andy Cowell to replace another F1 veteran Martin Whitmarsh. There could be more to join, as speculation about Adrian Newey remains hot during the summer break.
Fallows feels that this joining spree shows how exciting the Aston Martin F1 project is despite the results becoming stagnant off-late. “I think the thing for us is we’re a team that’s grown incredibly quickly and we’re carrying on growing,” he said. “And we can identify, as we get into a state which is closer to being able to challenge for race wins and championships, we can start to see as we’re on that journey that there are gaps in our expertise or where certain people could bring something to us.
“And with the announcements of Andy Cowell recently and Enrico Cardile, these are people with a huge amount of experience. The fact that we’re able to attract talent like that to the team just, I think, is a testament to just what an exciting project it is. And they can really see something and the potential in it, which is why we’re excited to have them along.
“As for Adrian, I mean, I worked with Adrian for a long time, as has my colleague next to me. You know, he’s a great asset to any team. Who knows where he’s going to end up,” summed up Fallows, who addressed the recent shortcomings of the F1 team and concerns raised by Fernando Alonso regarding the updates.
Fallows noted the complexity of the current generation of cars and its working window. But states that the team at the base are looking at the optimum use of the resources to direct and channel its development to extract that right window of performance.
“These cars, with these regulations, they’re very complicated ground effect cars,” stated Fallows. “They’re very sensitive to things like ride heights and ambient temperatures and tyres and everything else. And that does cause us a lot of issues in terms of where we want to add downforce or to add performance to the car.
“It’s not as simple as just adding downforce and everything comes to you. There’s always some kind of characteristic of the aerodynamic package which comes along with that. And it’s just a question of making sure that as you dial up the performance, that you don’t sort of introduce any of these either instabilities or characteristic changes.
“And I think we’ve seen that generally things tend to work the way we expect, up to a point, but then they’re not always things that suit the driver or suit the characteristics of the car. So it’s a constant sort of battle to try and improve the performance in both ways, really. That’s [improving the car for rest of 2024] absolutely the target.
“I mean, we are working absolutely flat out on this. I mean, the parts that we brought here this weekend have been the result of an enormous effort from the people back at base. They’re really working. The lights really never go out at the technology campus at the moment. And it’s a testament to the fact that everybody is hugely motivated in getting on top of these things. But obviously, you know, it’s an ongoing process and we’ll keep sticking at it until we’ve fixed our issues,” summed up Fallows.
Here’s more on Adrian Newey and Aston Martin
Here’s Fernando Alonso on 2024 disappointment
Here’s Stoffel Vandoorne undertaking Pirelli test
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