Aston Martin CEO Sets Out Expectations After Huge Performance Slump

Aston Martin CEO Andy Cowell has set a twenty percent success rate benchmark for the car's development this season after it won the "world championship" for the number of upgrades it introduced last year, but none helped to improve the car's pace.

Cowell will handle the dual roles of CEO and team principal after former team boss Mike Krack was recently moved to the position of Chief Trackside Officer.

After an impressive start to the 2023 season, during which Aston Martin secured several podium finishes, the team faced a significant downturn in 2024. The slump in performance was largely attributed to correlation issues, where the wind tunnel data failed to align with the car's on-track performance. The situation worsened as none of the upgrades managed to bring a meaningful turnaround for the AMR24.

While Cowell has no doubts about the team's efforts, he revealed a minimum success rate for the car's development, which he believes would set things right. He said:

“There is no lack of effort throughout the team.

“We definitely won the World Championship for the most updates in 2024, but those updates didn’t deliver the lap time – and what everybody wants in this business is to deliver lap time.

“That’s not to say we must get it right every time. I’ve seen statistics that show that in true research and development environments, a 20% success rate is high.

“If we can get a 20% success rate then that’s good, but the difference is that this needs to happen at the AMR Technology Campus and not at the track.”

Due to the correlation problems, Cowell has stressed having the best tools at hand that would help understand the car better and help make improvements, especially with Aston Martin investing heavily in infrastructure lately. He added:

“We need to make sure that all our tools and processes at the Technology Campus are working well enough to ensure that whenever we take an update to the circuit, we are at least 90% certain that it’s going to work on the track and meet our expectations.

“It’s not easy to achieve, but it’s what we need to be aiming for. We’ve got very powerful CFD tools and the most advanced wind tunnel in the sport coming online.

“They are only simulations, there will always be the risk of data not quite matching up with what we find on the circuit, but our simulations can give us a robust steer and I’m confident we can get to the point where we’re right 90% of the time.

“That’s the level that world championship-winning teams are operating at so that needs to be our aim at a minimum.”

Cowell highlighted the need for consistent success, especially with Aston Martin set to become a works team from 2026 by collaborating with Honda, the year Formula 1 enters a new era of regulations. Cowell said:

“2026 is a huge opportunity for us but it’s not just about ’26, it’s about ’27 and ’28 and ’29 and ’30,” he added. “It’s about building a team that can achieve sustained success.

“Yes, ’26 is important but it’s just another step on the journey.

“2025 is also an important step on our journey and we are focused on improving our performance this year and carrying positive momentum into 2026.

“We mustn’t underestimate the scale of the challenge to bring all these elements together. We’ve got to make the transition from a customer team to a works team at the same time as the new regulations come into play, and we’ve got to design and manufacture our own gearbox along with other components of the car that have previously been supplied to us by Mercedes.”