Aston Martin’s Performance Director, Tom McCullough has said that following the team’s rebrand, pretty much every aspect of the car has gone through major adjustments since the season opener in Bahrain.
These ongoing works have meant there isn’t a visible component on the AMR21 that hasn’t been improved in some way, McCullough explained.
Although they aren’t battling at the front of the grid on a regular basis, the recent improvements see them holding their own against their main rivals in the midfield.
Speaking to the official F1 website, McCullough said; “It was and is a more or less never-ending process of iterative development, and, as a result, there is almost no externally visible part of our car that has not been improved in some way between Bahrain and Silverstone.
“Or, to put it another way, if a part of our car is licked by the wind, we have probably updated it at some point over the past four months.
“It is working. We know that our car is still not the fastest, but it is now closer in performance to the cars of our principal rivals than it was at the beginning of the season, and that is the result of a carefully managed programme of aero improvement that has necessarily involved trial and error but has also delivered real results.
“It has been a very impressive body of work, and I salute my colleagues for it.”
Now that the summer break is here, the Performance Director said they’re focussing their attention on making their 2022 contender ‘as competitive as possible.’
They’ll be hoping to continue this season in the same fashion as the first half, collecting points across 9 out of 11 races.
He explained; “Like almost all the teams, after the summer shutdown we will transfer that effort and resource to the task of making our 2022 car as competitive as possible,” he said.
“As a team, we are operating well. We do not get everything right, no team does, but we racked up nine points-scoring results in the 11 races up to and including Silverstone, our home event, which is a very creditable effort.
“Also, it is worth noting that Lance was responsible for six of those nine points-scoring results: a very consistent performance for a driver who is still only 22 years old.”
The team will be back in action for the Belgian Grand Prix on August 29, when teams and drivers will head to Spa-Francorchamps for Round 12 of the 2021 season.
