The ultra-modern wind tunnel of Aston Martin will soon be operational
F1. Aston Martin's state-of-the-art wind tunnel on its Silverstone campus was handed over to the English team this week. Its commissioning should be completed before the end of the year.
Aston Martin, located on its new campus in Silverstone for just over a year now, has been handed the keys to one of the gems of the site: its wind tunnel. This will allow the English team to improve its research in aerodynamic development, especially since it did not have a facility of this kind until now.
The team's engineers are now entering a period of testing and calibration to fine-tune the final settings and make this wind tunnel operational before 2025. The commissioning aims to ensure that the floor striking the [car] model is in line with our expectations. It may take two or three months to be finalized, announced Luca Furbatto, Technical Director of Engineering at Aston Martin.
A first in 20 years
The team will gain autonomy, which has been using Mercedes' wind tunnel located in Brackley since 2018 (and the buyout of the team by Lawrence Stroll, editor's note). The Mercedes wind tunnel is a good wind tunnel, says the engineer. But it is obviously not at our headquarters, and we tend to use it on the weekends, which is suboptimal.
This wind tunnel is the first of its kind to emerge in 20 years since the creation of the Red Bull wind tunnel in Milton Keynes in the early 2000s. While some have undergone updates, like Ferrari's in Maranello in the 2010s or those of McLaren and Mercedes more recently, Aston Martin is positioning itself for the future with this novelty. One could certainly take a 20-year-old wind tunnel and upgrade it with new technologies, but it is never the same as starting with an entirely new one indicates Furbatto.
Expected effects as of 2025.
The commissioning of this wind tunnel should be timely to fine-tune the settings of their single-seaters that will be on the track in 2025. And the team will be able to fully benefit from it for those of 2026, as indicated by Furbatto: « It will be ideally suited to start the development of the 2026 car, which is allowed from January 2025. I think the 2025 car will continue to be developed, but there is a fine balance between what you put in for 2026 and what you put in for 2025 ». FIA regulations require it.
Aston Martin, which is waiting for the arrival of Enrico Cardile as technical director in 2025 and is about to confirm the arrival of engineer Adrian Newey in the coming days, is preparing to experience a pivotal moment in terms of development in the coming months.
