How Aston Martin has evolved its F1 concept for 2024

We expected two things from Aston Martin as it made its bow on Formula 1's 2024 launch season stage. Firstly, the car was going to be at least somewhat representative of a 2024 model, given that it has usually been open with its design over the past couple of seasons. Secondly, it was going to be green. Expectations were duly delivered upon.

It's likely that the team isn't quite showing its full hand with the AMR24, as it has decided to switch to a series of renders rather than studio shots, but we'll see the car on the road this afternoon during Aston Martin's shakedown - so it's not like there's anywhere to hide.

However, if this season's car has retained all of the best bits of the 2023 machine - one that catapulted Fernando Alonso back towards the front of the field for the first time in about a decade - and heightened them, while adding greater aero efficiency into the mix, then there's reason for Aston to be cheerful. But will it be the car that finally delivers win #33 for Alonso?

Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, Aston Martin elected to create a "strong evolution" of its AMR23 for 2024, per technical director Dan Fallows. That's not to say it's merely last year's car with added bits, as Fallows explained that most of the parts of the car were new, but rather that the bloodlines of the AMR23 remain present in this year's model. There are similarities present in some of the bodywork, but everything has been refined and improved.

"We have kind of built on the end of AMR23. The obvious things that you’ll see that are different, are things like the nose and front wing," Fallows revealed. "Bodywork will be different. But, there’s also quite a lot of stuff under the hood, which hopefully you won’t see! We will obviously try and keep some of that under wraps."

The AMR24 features a shorter nose this term; its predecessor featured a version where the nose extended to the leading edge of the front-most front wing element. This has been cut back for 2024, now leaving the bottom front wing element free to generate a pinch of extra downforce and use the slot gap to help trim back any pockets of flow separation from under the nose. Both Red Bull and McLaren had managed to push their nose-wing attachment points to a similar configuration last year, so there's clearly merit here in using the lower wing element to help set up the airflow for the rest of the car.

The AMR24's revised nose and front wing will aim to aid airflow for the rest of the car

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

Further refinements can be found around the sidepods and bodywork around the rest of the car, and Aston Martin has followed the trend of adding a protruding bottom 'lip' on the sidepod inlets. This contains one of the side impact structures and helps to split any slightly turbulent airflow emerging from the suspension elements from the cleaner air that it hopes to direct into the inlets. The dirty suspension air (technical term, I promise you) is directed underneath that lip and fired at the undercut - increased in size for this season.

This is part of multiple efforts to limit drag, yet retain a similar downforce point, as Aston Martin's largest weakness was in its straightline performance last year. Alonso made suggestions that he'd like to see that top-speed weakness addressed, which Fallows reckons has been one of the key breakthroughs in the 2024 car.

"Fernando, as with both of our drivers, is quite vocal about what he wants to see on the car, how the car is performing. And actually, that's the kind of feedback we really, really relish. That's exactly what we want to know, is how they feel the car can go faster," he explained. "Certainly, straightline speed and making sure the car is as efficient as possible has been a big focus over the winter. I think that is something that we've managed to achieve on this year's car to make a step on that."

"It is a short off-season and we were developing things that were relevant for this year quite late on into last season. So, the main aim for us is really to make sure that this car is a good platform to put those developments on during the season" Dan Fallows

Aston continues to plough its own furrow with its sidepod design, although there are small Red Bull influences here and there - particularly in shaping the underside. As explained in the Sauber launch feature, the bulge underneath the sidepod helps to eliminate any lift effects produced by the sidepod geometry; this is something that was featured to an extent on the AMR23, but the larger undercut for this year makes it more noticeable. Along the top, the waterslide channels remain to aggressively position airflow to the top of the floor and around the rear suspension.

PLUS: The high-stakes design theory that Sauber hopes is key to 2024 F1 progress

Oh, about that suspension package. Mercedes supplies the rear suspension package to Aston Martin, which makes sense given that it already does the team's powertrain and gearbox, but Aston's earlier launch has revealed that Mercedes by association is set to switch to a push-rod at the back. Pull-rods have been in use at the rear for well over a decade, but there are clear packaging benefits behind the push-rod rear suspension layout. The need to house rockers and dampers low down in a pull-rod layout means that this can often take expansion space away from the floor; moving them higher up will come with a slight centre of gravity penalty, but evidently, this is worth the trade-off.

Aston Martin has switched to a push-rod rear suspension due to Mercedes customer part changes

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

Bodywork around the engine cover has been tightened up slightly, and the fin along the top surface has been set off by a new streak of fluorescent yellow. It's an important detail; sources suggest that the added yellow will offer at least half a tenth in performance...

Jesting aside, Aston Martin has not only paid attention to the areas that demanded refinement over last year's car, but also has an eye on development potential - citing the short off-season between 2023 and 2024 as a factor. That's not to say that the car will start behind, but rather that the team couldn't quite juice every single lemon in time for the season to start.

The winter shutdown and short turnaround between the end of 2023 and Bahrain testing has compressed everybody's late-season development into a short timeframe, so many will be looking at the opening half of the season to introduce upgrades.

"We’re very pleased with the step that we’ve made over the winter, we think we have made a step on last year’s car, which is what we wanted," Fallows explained. "But, in truth, it is a short off-season and we were developing things that were relevant for this year quite late on into last season. So, the main aim for us is really to make sure that this car is a good platform to put those developments on during the season.

"We’ve seen – particularly last season but also the season before – the in-season development race is absolutely fierce and we want to be as competitive in that as we have been going into the new season. So, that’s what we’ve been really focused on – to make sure that we’ve got a good, stable basis for us to go and develop the car and keep those updates coming and keep the performance coming."

"I think it's no secret that we took a sort of pragmatic approach to the end of last season. We wanted to make sure that we use every opportunity to really learn the lessons that we needed to learn on AMR23. We had effectively a kind of glorified test session almost in some of the races. But it was important for us to do that.

"We recognised that we needed to do something that was going to teach us lessons for 2024. And we did, and I think to come out of that having achieved good performances towards the end of the season culminating at a podium in Brazil."

Overall the AMR24 is a refined package on last year's car

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

After starting 2023 so explosively with five podiums in the first six races, Aston Martin's fortunes tailed off slightly as the other teams' development began to intensify - so it's little surprise to see it taking the approach that it has for 2024. Watching the green machines join the battle at the front of the field added a rare splash of excitement last season, particularly for those who enjoyed seeing Alonso roll back the years with a series of podium visits.

PLUS: How Alonso took the challenge to Red Bull and enlivened F1 2023

Fallows reckons that the team has made a step over last year, but it'll be the size of the step that dictates whether Aston Martin can claim a victory or two with its AMR24. If the car is good enough to do it, you can bet that the evergreen Alonso will be able to make the magic happen.

But if it's not quite ripe enough at the start of the year, then all is not lost; McLaren proved last year that development rewards can be plentiful. If it's not a nugget of purest green, but more of a splat: it may be a splat today, but tomorrow - who knows, or dares to dream?

Could the AMR24 be a winner in 2024?

Photo by: Aston Martin