Aston Martin are certainly hoping for a big 2023, with the Silverstone-based outfit pulling out all the stops to try and move closer to the front of the field.
Since Lawrence Stroll bought Force India, Aston Martin have been a comfortable midfield side, who have enjoyed one podium since being rebranded from Racing Point at the start of 2021.
The team are certainly ambitious, with a state-of-the-art factory currently being built, one which will see the side have arguably the best facilities on the grid.
Stroll is clearly after success and has worked out a plan on how to achieve what he wants, with the Canadian having brought into the side a number of key personnel from their competitors.
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One of which is Red Bull’s former head of aerodynamics Dan Fallows, who moved from Milton Keynes to Silverstone at the start of 2022.
Aston Martin have also taken important personnel from Mercedes and Alfa Romeo, with Fallows recognising that the team are learning from what “other teams are doing”.
“We’re keen to learn from what other people do well,” Fallows told Motorsport.com.
“And it’s something I’ve always found, when you recruit people there is always something you can learn that other teams are doing, but also we’ve been fortunate enough to recruit some very talented and experienced people who have their own ideas about what makes a car go fast.
“The nice thing is they’ve come into this environment very open-minded, very willing to forge their own way of doing things using that experience, that collective experience, to go our own way.”
Fallows alone is a huge signing for Aston Martin, with the former Red Bull colleague having enjoyed unprecedented success whilst working with the Austrians.
It’s expected that the team’s 2023 challenger will be heavily influenced by Fallows, who is Aston Martin’s technical director.
He himself admits that there are many things he’s brought into Aston Martin in regard to how Red Bull worked, one of which is “what it means to win races and win championships”.
“There’s a number of reasons why Red Bull are good,” Fallows said.
“They’ve managed, over a period of years, to iron out issues in every aspect of the team, whether that be the race team, the manufacturing facilities, the design office, and a lot of building that kind of success is making sure there are no areas where you have substantial weaknesses.
“In many ways, I’m very proud that I was part of that on the engineering side. They’re an incredibly strong team, and I think that I do have that experience of what it means to win races and win championships.
“I think the key message is that you have to make sure that in every aspect of what you’re doing there are no holes, no things that you’re doing that can be compromising your performance as you go along.”
Aston Martin are hungry to succeed and are clearly on the right path to do so, with Fernando Alonso having been signed to replace the now retired Sebastian Vettel.
Fallows is aware, though, that to reach the top of the sport the team need to do it their way and not “just replicate what our competitors do”.
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“The important thing for us is to make sure we don’t just replicate what our competitors do. We don’t believe that is going to help us overtake the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari,” added Fallows.
“So we have to develop our own way of doing things. That does take time, but we’ve got a hugely ambitious group of people, and one of the things about seeing the new factory come together is it demonstrates this momentum, this wish to kind of accelerate the process of moving up the grid and getting into a winning situation.
“And I think that’s what’s really going to help us get there, this passion, this motivation and this belief we will get there eventually.”