Rumor: Aston Martin performance drop due to FIA clamp down (Update)

There is speculation that the upgrades from Aston Martin in Canada didn’t work as expected, as the development was based on the car before the forced front-wing change

It is believed that the airflow from the new front wing changed the car’s characteristics in such a way that the upgrades from Canada no longer worked properly with the overall package and threw the car off balance

Ted Kravitz reported that both Tom McCullough and Mike Krack confirmed to him that the Canada upgrades confused the team and led to balance issues with their AMR23

The AMR23 has been struggling with a nervous rear end lately, which has led to overheating tires, more tire wear and poorer cornering.

The FIA’s crackdown on their cheating meant that the benefit of more wind tunnel hours than the rivals was lost, all the work and hours in the wind tunnel that had been done in the early months of the season were no longer of any use.

This could also explain why Aston Martin have made almost only track specific changes in the last few races, as they needed time to develop on the basis of the new front wing requirement.

The engineers have worked very hard to find solutions and these will arrive after the summer break.

It is expected that new side-pods, floor and a front-wing are to come after the summer break.  Source: Aston Martin Formula 1 News

Rumor has it that Aston Martin’s front wings were flexing too much, and the FIA clamped down and demanded they fix them.

Competing teams watched onboard footage from Fernando Alonso’s car in the early races noted flex in the front wing as it hit top speed on the straights and supposedly reported it to the FIA officials.

Word is that the FIA acted around the time of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and advised Aston Martin it’s wings appeared to be flexing too much and to avoid any potential trouble at subsequent races, to fix them.

Since then, the team’s F1 cars have not been as strong.