As we’ve seen multiple times this pre-season, It’s funny how Formula 1 teams play tricks with us when we are simply doing our best to cover the release of their new cars in as much detail as possible.
Letting us do the best we can with what we see or are given is a way for teams to get their sponsors’ names out there and as much information as possible to their supporters.
It will all come out in the wash very soon on Wednesday morning, so why try to be a smart arse?
But we’ve had to get used to teams’ launch renders being very different to their real cars, as the differences between what Aston Martin released digitally in its launch on Sunday and what it ran on track for its filming day in Bahrain on Monday show.
Let’s look at the nose and front wing detail: the 2024 version, the 2025 launch version and the 2025 shakedown version.
The pictures are at slightly different angles so it is difficult to go into detail about the front wing flap profiles but the filming version (red highlight) looks like it has a higher leading edge and more aggressive trailing flap curvature. Both might just increase low speed front load.
The main difference is where the nose meets the leading flap (highlighted with the red ellipse). Aston Martin has done away with the slot gap here. I must say the launch version was fairly basic. This might just generate a small increase in front load at low speed but it could very easily create instability in the flow on the underside of the nose which is feeding the leading edge of the underfloor.
The filming version of the floor side has much more detail (shown in the blue ellipse). The launch render version was again basic to say the least, but this is an area where I can understand the teams trying to keep designs secret for as long as possible. It is a critical part of the car and is performance related so the detail needs to be there when you first start running seriously.
Aston Martin made a big deal in its launch press release about a jagged edge to the engine cover. I didn’t see much of that when I went through the car renders. However, the shots from the filming day show that it is much more exaggerated. The fin isn’t actually bigger, it's just the engine cover body profile (shown with the yellow line) that is smaller and more compact. Having a fin like this can be detrimental when you have a crosswind or even when the car is in yaw mid-corner.
The side of the cannons below the Aston Martin decal (yellow ellipse) now has an array of cooling exit louvers. I’m not quite sure what the black part is, I don’t think it’s louvers. It might be some sort of device to generate vortices to improve the performance of the louvers behind it.
I know these latest Aston Martin shots come from a simple filming day but as George Russell said last week: the drivers will get their first impressions from the car within five laps.
So even from Monday’s brief run, Aston Martin will have an idea of how its start to 2025 might look.
When you go to the extent of trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes with a detail-free render, you need to make sure the difference works when your real car hits the track. Otherwise it’s very easy to get egg on your face. Time will tell and the stopwatch doesn’t lie.
