Aston Martin has taken the wraps off its 2023 car, with technical director Dan Fallows calling the AMR23 a 'significant development' of last year's car.
Although this year's technical regulations are largely unchanged, Fallows declared that this year's chassis was a wide-ranging and aggressive rethink of their approach to car design.
“The design team was adamant that it wanted to tackle these regulations without compromise," he explained at a packed launch event held at the team's brand new Silverstone headquarters.
"We want to move up the grid and start challenging the teams at the front," he explained. "You can’t do that by sitting back and being conservative.
“[The] AMR23 is a significant development of the car we refined in the latter half of 2022, and we have improved it in every critical area.
"It optimises the solutions we felt would offer us the most performance, and it embodies the joint vision we have embraced and have built together over the recent months.
"We went into this year trying to be bold and aggressive, to try to take on the lessons from last year,” he continued. “You can see that the car is very, very different from last year.
"Around 95 per cent of the car is actually completely different from AMR22.
© Aston Martin F1
“We did make quite a bit of progress through AMR22, and we wanted to make sure that this is a sensible evolution of that, but it also gives us a really good platform to develop on.
“At the same time we wanted to make sure that it was aggressive, to give a big challenge to all of the engineering team to make sure that they really push themselves. And I think you can see that, in the design of the car.”
With only a few minor adjustments to the technical regulations focused on ensuring compliance and improving safety, Fallows and his team were able to use the relative stability as a platform for targeted innovation.
The key visible aerodynamic differences include a heavily revised front wing, and new sidepods incorporating a sweeping inner ramp to more efficiently channel airflow. There's also a new engine cover with a larger roll hoop inlet.
© Aston Martin F1
Fallows admitted that the car unveiled on Monday evening was but the start of a long road for Aston Martin: "We need to focus on delivering an ambitious yet efficient programme of updates for the first race and across the remainder of the season.”
Fallows will continue to lead the design office with Andrew Green becoming Chief Technical Officer for Aston Martin Performance Technologies, to expand and diversify the Group’s broader commercial activities.
The team also announced that the AMR23 will complete a filming day at Silverstone on Wednesday February 15, with Lance Stroll running in the morning session before Fernando Alonso takes take over in the afternoon.
After that the team will head to Bahrain for three days of pre-season testing between February 23 and 25, with the first Grand Prix taking place at the same venue on March 5.
They are hoping to improve on their 2022 performance which saw Aston Martin finish in seventh place in the constructors championship after tying on points with Alfa Romeo following the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi.
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