Aston Martin will be aiming to build on their excellent end to 2022 in 2023, rather than start the new season the way they did this year.
Given their typical status as a midfield side, it was somewhat of a shock to see the Silverstone-based outfit struggle early in the year; however, to their credit they improved as the year went on.
By the end of the season they were comfortably the sixth best team on the grid, but due to their bad start to the campaign they claimed seventh in the Constructors’ Championship.
Agonisingly, they ended the year level on points with Alfa Romeo, with Valtteri Bottas’ fifth place finish at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix sealing the Swiss side P6.
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Sebastian Vettel was gutted to miss out on P6 in the standings, having run in the right position for the first half of the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Aston Martin would’ve claimed sixth if the now-retired German had overtaken Daniel Ricciardo on the final lap, something he couldn’t quite manage.
Nevertheless, with Fernando Alonso now onboard for next season after taking Vettel’s place, the British side are eager to improve in 2023.
To do this, the team’s technical director Tom McCullough has admitted that the side’s 2023 car is looking “very different” to the AMR22, suggesting a new design philosophy for next season.
“I think, for us, [the Technical Directive] maybe affected some of the other teams but that didn’t really have an impact on our operating the car,” McCullough said to PlanetF1.com.
“We actually brought quite large floor updates to several events. Obviously, Singapore was the final one, but we had one in Paul Ricard as well as Silverstone. Actually, some of our updates, the ones that look physically smaller, have actually produced the most performance as well.
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“So, for us, it’s just been about, ‘right, we’re here, how do we just keep developing on this car?’ The bits that we’ve brought from the wind tunnel to the track, have actually largely all done what they should have been doing.
“Which was just, all the time, giving us a bit more performance but also a bit wider operating window on the car.
“Ultimately, the cost cap is quite a key thing there. The [2023] car we have in the wind tunnel at the moment is very different to the one we’ve got now.”