END OF YEAR REPORT: Aston Martin – A season below expectations but with key high-profile arrivals

By Aston Martin’s own admissions, 2024 fell significantly short of their expectations. While the season before had brought podium-scoring exploits, this year the on-track performances failed to sparkle on a regular basis. In the end that would result in a relative no man’s land of P5 in the constructors’ – 374 points behind fourth-placed Mercedes. That said, the continued work behind the scenes and key personnel additions – including one particularly high-profile individual – means this is still one of the teams to watch in the months and years to come. Here is their end of year report…

Best finish

Fernando Alonso – 5th in Saudi Arabia

It’s hard to fathom that Aston Martin’s best finish came in the second race of the year – but that’s an indication as to how their season petered out.

While Fernando Alonso crossed the line behind the likes of Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri that day in Jeddah it represented one of just a few ultra-competitive events for the Silverstone squad.

To put their campaign into perspective, Aston had scored 73 points by the time we got to the 2024 summer break. After that they only racked up 21 more points, all scored by Alonso.

That’s a long, long way from last year’s tally of 280, and shows why Alonso in particular was wishing very openly to see the back of 2024.

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - MARCH 09: Fernando Alonso of Spain driving the (14) Aston Martin AMR24 — Alonso's P5 in Saudi Arabia was Aston Martin's best finish of the year

Qualifying head-to-head

Alonso 19-5 Stroll

The two-time world champion led the way compared to his team mate Lance Stroll again this year, securing a comfortable head-to-head win in qualifying in their second season together.

While the highlights became fewer as the year wore on, the Spaniard can look back on a highly impressive P3 qualifying result in China as something to be proud of.

Stroll’s high point in qualifying came at Silverstone, Hungary and in the Netherlands where he bagged a joint-best P8 starting berth each time.

Race head-to-head

Alonso 17-7 Stroll

The Spaniard also leads his Canadian team mate in the race head-to-head stakes as well with the aforementioned result in Saudi Arabia his best of the season. There were also some highly impressive top-six results in Japan, Canada, and Baku.

Stroll’s best result was a very solid P6 in Australia, while he also took P7 at the team’s home race in Silverstone, though the 26-year-old will be the first to admit his disappointment at not scoring since the Hungarian Grand Prix all the way back in July.

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 07: 13th placed qualifier Lance Stroll of Canada and — Stroll hasn't scored a point since the Hungarian Grand Prix

Best moment

Really there is only one place to turn to for Aston Martin’s best moment of the year – the signing of design guru Adrian Newey.

With Red Bull announcing back in May that Newey would be leaving the Milton Keynes outfit, after almost 20 years, the race to sign the Briton stepped into overdrive. After being linked with several teams across the grid it was Aston Martin that won out, with Newey becoming their Managing Technical Partner on a long-term deal.

There was plenty of fanfare around that September announcement – and rightly so – but it was also a significant indicator in the strength of the project with Newey agreeing to sign on. Aston Martin have long been building the facilities to challenge at the top and, in Newey’s arrival, they’ve bagged arguably the ultimate prize in designer terms currently working in F1.

ANALYSIS: 'I’ve never been more certain' – How Lawrence Stroll fended off the competition to snap up ‘bargain’ Adrian Newey

Worst moment

While we could sit on the fence here and look at Aston Martin’s performance dip in the second half of the season, we’re going to focus the magnifying glass on Brazil.

While that race in Sao Paulo was a chaotic affair for many teams, for Aston it was one of pure pain – quite literally in Alonso’s case. On his way to P14 the Spaniard would report over the radio that his back was hurting as result, while he appeared to have tears in his eyes during a chat with Sky Sports F1 afterwards.

Meanwhile Stroll’s race also never got going – again, literally – with the Canadian spinning out on the formation lap before beaching himself on the gravel.

2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix: Stroll spins out on the formation lap as the race start is aborted

Going forward

There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s been a difficult year for Aston Martin but, as hinted at by Team Principal Mike Krack, the team will have learned from the experience.

“I think all in all a difficult season comes to an end,” he reflected over the Qatar Grand Prix weekend. “We had higher expectations.

“I think we started where realistically we thought we would be as a team. We wanted to close the gap to the teams in front of us. It went rather the other direction, we were caught by the midfield to which we had quite a substantial gap at the beginning of the year, so that is why we can’t be happy with how it went.

“But we have also learned our lessons in terms of what we have to do differently going forward, and we are full steam [ahead] on next year’s car to make it a better contender [than] the one we have now.”

SILVERSTONE, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 10: Adrian Newey, Managing Technical Partner, Aston Martin F1 — Adrian Newey was unveiled as Aston Martin's Managing Technical Partner back in September

While that performance direction may have led to Dan Fallows leaving his role as Technical Director, the assembled cast of personnel behind the scenes – coupled with the facilities the team have to play with – bodes well for the future.

Newey is the key figure obviously, with the former Red Bull man starting work on March 1, 2025, but Aston Martin also have former Ferrari technical chief Enrico Cardile set to join too. Couple that with the arrival this year of Andy Cowell as CEO and it’s a formidable line-up.

If Aston can marry it all with the valuable learnings of this year, then their 2025 effort could represent a significant step forward. But ultimately everything will still be geared with one eye on 2026 – where the team will hope to truly make an impact amid the new regulations and a new partner in Honda.