Aston Martin sees 2025 car as first to benefit from new windtunnel

Aston Martin plans to have its new windtunnel up and running at its Silverstone campus by mid-2024, which should allow its new tool to contribute to the development of its AMR25.

Aston has labeled its future state-of-the-art factory complex "a game changer" for the team which aspires to be fighting for the F1 world championship by 2026.

Construction work on the 37,000 square metre campus that broke ground at the end of the summer of 2021 is well underway, and its main factory building that will house Aston's design and production departments is expected to be completed in May 2023.

However, the team's windtunnel, a crucial element of its infrastructure, will be switched on about fifteen months later according to Aston martin technical director Dan Fallows.

"The target for the wind tunnel is to be online in the middle of 2024," he said, quoted by Motorsport.com.

"We’re hoping that will have at least some contribution to the ’25 [car]. I think depending on how the commissioning and things of the tunnel goes, that will be probably the first car that will have a significant impact with the new tunnel.

"In terms of the factory itself, that’s coming online next year with various stages, so we’re hoping that the cars prior to that will see the benefit of the new factory as well."

Upon the completion of the windtunnel, a lengthy but critical process of calibration and correlation follows, and Fallows has made clear that Aston's engineers will only be able to rely on their new tool once it is properly set up.

"Inevitably when you build a wind tunnel you have to go through a commissioning process," explained the Aston tech boss. "And that’s really just to determine that it’s going to give you the numbers you expect to see.

"We’re fortunate enough to be testing in the Mercedes wind tunnel, which is a very high-quality facility, so we need to make sure our new facility is giving results which are consistent with those."

• Read also: Aston Martin says new factory a 'game changer' for F1 team

Fallows highlighted the importance for Aston of having its own windtunnel facility.

“There’s no doubt that it will be a world-class facility and having access to that 24/7 if required is obviously very important.

"As we improve and our wind tunnel runs availability that we have from the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions goes down, clearly we wouldn’t be spending as much time in the tunnel.

"But having your own facility means you can do other experiments as well, which is invaluable, and something we don’t necessarily have the luxury of doing at the moment sharing the tunnel with another team."

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