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Lance Stroll built on his P6 finish in Australia with another strong performance, putting himself amongst the top 10 in Sprint Qualifying. His teammate Alonso finished in P11, having reached second at one stage after the first runs in SQ1.
Generally speaking, the first indications of this 2025 campaign are positive for Andy Cowell’s personnel.
The Aston Martin team principal has spoken with confidence about some of the upgrades in the pipeline for the AMR25.
Even without these improvements, Alonso and Stroll are competitive – despite both admitting there is more potential to unlock in their current package.
A solid start for Aston Martin in Shanghai
Unlike last year, the expectations surrounding the Silverstone-based operation are relatively low.
Having fallen off in last year’s development race, nobody expected Aston Martin to trouble the top teams after testing.
Several media outlets placed Aston as the 8th-fastest team in pre-season, a consensus which carried into the opening round in Australia.
Although there still isn’t enough of a sample size to make conclusions about the AMR25, there are reasons to be optimistic.
The car is correlating well with the factory data, and both drivers have confirmed that drivability is greatly improved from last season.
For all the focus on Williams and VCARB, there is reason to believe Aston Martin can be the ‘best of the rest’ behind the top four in 2025.
Speaking after a sub-optimal lap in Sprint Qualifying, Fernando Alonso was upbeat about the AMR25’s potential:
“I am quite happy with Sprint Qualifying today as the car felt quite competitive.
“SQ1 went very well for me and in our first push lap we managed to finish second. I just missed out on the top 10 in the end, but it’s good that we got one car into SQ3.
“It’s clearly very close in the midfield and let’s see what we can do in the Sprint.”
More time to find
This rhetoric is very different from most of the Spaniard’s quotes in pre-season, where he tried to manage expectations.
Of course, in the grand scheme of things, Aston Martin are unlikely to consistently trouble the top teams.
However, they are undoubtedly in a better place than they finished last year. Not just in terms of performance, but also regarding the AMR25’s characteristics becoming more consistent.
Even after making SQ3 in Shanghai, Lance Stroll emphasised there is room for improvement:
“I think it was a good session for us, it we could have signed up with 3 before the session, we would have.
“So I think it was a good session… It’s very tight between the midfield teams, not much in it.
“We’ll keep trying to improve the car tomorrow. [The car is] not too bad, but things to work on.”
A clear vision for the future
It should be noted the Canadian set his final lap on used tyres. Aston Martin are clearly prioritising qualifying and Sunday’s race, when there is more to play for.
Putting aside their pace this weekend, the British squad are not hiding behind 2026 as an excuse for any potential shortcomings this season.
Of course, the upcoming regulation changes are their priority. Adrian Newey’s work at the factory thus far validates this.
Still, Aston Martin expect to be competitive in 2025.
Andy Cowell told the ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast that Aston Martin would be disappointed to end this year without a podium.
Ultimately, it is still important the team validates the effectiveness of their new infrastructure and technical team.
Cowell explained things candidly to Tom Clarkson:
“Of course [Aston would be disappointed to end 2025 without a podium].
“As I said earlier on, we want to do well. We want to score points every race we go to – and every time we don’t we’re disappointing.
“We’re building, we’re getting better, trying to make our foundations robust. And that’s of our engineering machine, out engineering capability.
“Because I’m a firm believer, if we get that right and build up form that, we’ll be able to build quick cars regardless of the regulations.”
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