The car Aston Martin begins its new F1 journey with

For the first time in 61 years, a new Aston Martin Formula 1 car has been unveiled to the world and with it, Racing Point’s transition to the identity of the British marque is complete. And it looks utterly sublime.

Firstly, that shade of British racing green is just right. Sure, the tiny Union Flag and metallic green hue is ultimately fan service to British sportscars of old, but it works. Neglecting to cast off the team’s roots entirely, a twist of pink is enough of a nod to its days as Racing Point – a name that will begin to look more peculiar with a little distance to it. Together, it’s a very elegant livery indeed.

Aston Martin, the brand, has been something of a draw for suppliers and partners too. Press releases from the team, commonly relating to new blue-chip sponsors throwing their lot in with the Silverstone outfit, have been an off-season staple. Even the signing of new title sponsor Cognizant didn’t deter water enthusiasts BWT from re-signing with the team, so it is clearly doing something right.

But you’re not here for a run-down of stickers and hosiery, you’re here for the technical side of launch season’s spot-the-different play. And, while on the face of it, the AMR21 is still a carryover of the famed Mercedes facsimile RP20, there are some key and crucial differences. Also not wishing to indulge in this year’s “hide the floor” competition, Aston Martin has given us our clearest indicator yet of how of 2021’s revised rules have impacted on design.

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The front end is altogether familiar, with the AMR21 retaining many of the RP20’s key features in its similarity to the Mercedes nose concept. While it also continues the use of the spoon-shaped collection of wing flaps, it does feature a scalloped upper element, a design the team implemented in the latter stages of 2020. The front brake ducts also remain in much the same specification as last year, although it’s hard to make out those at the rear at this current time...

Aston Martin AMR21 detail

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

Most of the key differences lie in the packaging around the rear half of the car, and the team has ditched the more conventional sidepod inlets to fall in line with the rest of the field. Now, these inlets have been raised and the side-on crash structure has been lowered to accommodate this. Doing so gives the air entering the radiators a cleaner line of fire, improving the cooling properties and allowing the inlet to be smaller as the mass-flow rate of air increases.

Aston Martin’s development tokens were spent on the front of the survival cell and its associated crash structures to enact that change, while aerodynamics and engine changes are exempt if they do not impact the car’s structural mountings.

“We early on last year needed some efficiency in our cooling package,” says team principal Otmar Szafnauer. “So we recognised that we weren't cooling the powertrain as efficiently as we should be. The reason we chose to use our tokens on the chassis is so we have more efficient cooling. It's that simple.”

The front of the floor, which interacts with the bargeboard elements, has a lot of added furniture. It appears that the prevailing concept is to do the work that the eliminated floor slots were employed to do earlier, providing a barrier of defence for the floor’s underside and diffuser

Below that, the bargeboards have been given plenty of attention too. The key concept remains, but there’s a few more additions; the twin boomerang arrangement remains, but the fins along the top side have been broken up a little more to help pull airflow downwards and around the lower reaches of the sidepod. The outboard element that the boomerangs clip onto has also been broken up, with two smaller vanes preceding the array of elements attached to the sidepod’s crash structure. All of these have had to be modified to satisfy the new sidepod arrangement.

Part way through 2020, Racing Point introduced new sidepods with a distinct ramp arrangement to send airflow downwards towards the floor. With less floor space available, the ramp has been incorporated more neatly into the top surface of the sidepods, producing a much rounder shape in line with the designs Mercedes has employed over the past couple of seasons. It will still have the same effect, but happens to make it look a little more elegant.

The front of the floor, which interacts with the bargeboard elements, has a lot of added furniture. It appears that the prevailing concept is to do the work that the eliminated floor slots were employed to do earlier, providing a barrier of defence for the floor’s underside and diffuser. Like AlphaTauri, the floor squares off after the curled lip along the middle of its edge, perhaps to improve the expansion of airflow in this area and recoup some of the losses over the off-season. There’s also a trio of fins behind this to help turn the airflow outwards.

At the rear corner, a collection of small, upright fins have sprouted. This looks, on first glance, to be an aggressive attempt at shoving airflow outwards around the rear tyre, although it is admittedly difficult to make out the fin’s firing direction from the images available.

Aston Martin AMR21 detail

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

Like the Mercedes W12 launched on Tuesday, there’s also a bulge in the engine cover in deference to the new powertrain arrangement developed by the German marque’s High Performance Powertrains division. Mercedes’ engine director Hywel Thomas explained that the new power unit features some “innovative” additions, which Aston Martin will hope will provide it with the tools it needs to continue its ascent up the order.

The exhaust pipe and twin wastegate pipes seem to be in the same specification as last year, while the rear wing is portrayed in largely the same higher-downforce arrangement that Racing Point used in 2020, complete with the slightly extruded centre and outboard leading edges to mimic the shape of the trailing edge, retaining some of the chord length. Furthermore, the rear wing endplates are those that Racing Point introduced part-way through 2020 too, with the connected overhanging slots and upwards-firing vortex generators.

With the same overall concept as last season, Aston Martin may end up facing the pejorative “Green Mercedes” label throughout 2021, but the team appears to have understood the nuances of a Mercedes-style layout and worked its own developments into it with success. The RP20’s performance over 2020 continued to increase throughout the year, thanks to the greater capital available to the team, but there are warning signs that the team must not get complacent.

Chairman Lawrence Stroll’s desire to turn the team into a “green Ferrari” is an admirable one, and the British racing green livery should capture the imagination of fans enthralled by Aston’s previous exploits in sportscars. However, dreams of a “green Ferrari” have been voiced before when Ford purchased the improving Stewart team. Rebranding it as Jaguar, Ford’s lack of understanding in running a race team mired the outfit in upper-management warfare, and the promise shown by Jackie Stewart’s squad that finished fourth in the 1999 constructors' championship was dampened by an ever-changing cast within.

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If Aston Martin is to avoid that fate, staying true to the values that made Force India and Racing Point so strong against more monied opposition is a must. With Stroll overseeing both Aston Martin the manufacturer and Aston Martin the F1 team, it should thankfully avoid boardroom meddling as the outfit embarks upon a new journey.

With a four-time world champion on its books in Sebastian Vettel, Aston now has that star power to help it find its way up the order and ensure it becomes a long-term success. For the benefit of headline writers everywhere, the squad will want to continue its metamorphosis into a lean, green, winning machine.

Aston Martin AMR21 detail

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing