Aston Martin working out of "Portakabins" ahead of F1 factory move

The new Silverstone headquarters will be ready imminently, with some office operations moving by the end of this month. Meanwhile, the wind tunnel will influence car design from 2025.

Aston performance director Tom McCullough reckons the team will gain most significantly from the greater communication the new factory will allow, with the current multi-site set-up "disjointed" as colleagues from the technical team are in separate "Portakabins".

Speaking about the £200 million factory project being finished, McCullough said: "It's quite exciting really. We're in the final stages of sorting out who sits where at which desks and what we're going to be doing.

"We're really looking forward to that because we're all a bit disjointed at the moment in Portakabins, separate buildings. All the technical people aren't sat next to each other.

"[The new building] is fantastic. You just smile as you walk around it."

McCullough added that the straightforward move of repositioning the departments would benefit the team, which currently sits second behind Red Bull in the constructors' standings.

He said: "It's going to make a bigger difference than people even realise. Just communication. Bumping into people at the same coffee station...you just rub shoulders with the people that you're working closely with.

Aston Martin Silverstone factory rendering

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

"At the moment, we're in different buildings, different sites even. It's going to be really good."

Aston Martin also has a new wind tunnel under construction, although this infrastructure upgrade is not set to be ready until 2025, a year behind rival McLaren's new facility.

Given that the outfit currently uses the Mercedes wind tunnel at Brackley, McCullough reckons "extra flexibility" will be one of the greatest virtues of the new configuration.

He explained: "It's definitely better having it on-site. Having your own wind tunnel means that within the [Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions] regulations, you can use it when you want to use it.

"If you have a problem or you learn something, you can just stop, go back, produce some new bits, think about something, go back and turn it on again.

"It gives you that extra flexibility. You can really operate seven days a week.

"At the moment, we've only got limited time in the tunnel that we're using, so you have to be very intense and you can't react too much.

"Also, on-site, if there's any problems, the people who are drawing the parts are just in the building next to you. It's definitely going to help with communication."