Aston Martins team boss Otmar Szafnauer announced this information in an interview with Sky Sports F1 with a view to the upcoming campaign.
With a rebranding from Racing Point to Aston Martin and the arrival of Sebastian Vettel, the Silverstone-based team appears optimistic about its upcoming campaign.
About the car, Szafnauer said: “We didn’t have the normal development latitude that we normally have, so from a philosophical point of view, operating a low-rake car has stayed the same.
“Although the philosophy is transferable, we will still have many new parts on the car, many new aerodynamic developments and even a new chassis for us. So although the car will be similar to last year’s, it is mostly new “.
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A development stop and token system was introduced by the FIA last year to cut costs and fill the void on the brand new car, which was first supported in 2021 but has now been postponed to 2022.
This means that most of the main hardware of the cars will be carried over from last season. However, each team has the option to issue two tokens so as not to be too hindered by a certain design aspect that did not please in 2020.
Aston Martin appears to have chosen to spend its two tokens on an important item: the survival cell.
Divisible by the BB line, the survival cell is divided into two sections, both of which bear the cost of two tokens, meaning only one can be changed.
As such, Aston Martin will likely have made changes to the rear section of the survival cell to reverse a decision made last season.
The RP20 featured the side impact protection bars above the side box inlet, which reflected the design of the Mercedes W10 that it was based on. That decision made it the only car in the field that didn’t have the SIPS in the bottom position, as was first introduced by Ferrari in 2017.
The decision to place the SIPS in the lower position is primarily driven by aerodynamic factors, but requires repositioning the internal cooling solutions so the team can take full advantage of it.
The team spent a lot of time and resources on this last season, as a large upgrade package that was first driven in Mugello contained a new sidepod body (right).
This was part of a major overhaul to take into account the more efficient AMG M11 powerplant, which required less cooling than its predecessor and allowed the team to put aside the design it had adopted when studying the W10.
This year’s design will undoubtedly build on this principle and not only take into account the experience with the new body of the last season and another new unit from HPP, but also our own advance with lowered SIPS in 2019 (below).
Racing Point RP19, side pods
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Aston Martin, then Racing Point, was already in the middle of a storm with regard to the token system last season, as both he and Alpha Tauri were able to switch to 2020 parts from Mercedes or Red Bull Technologies without issuing tokens have to do it.
This meant that both would be able to use a 2020 spec transmission and rear suspension. While AlphaTauri has chosen not to go that route, Aston Martin will almost certainly use whatever it can.
Mercedes AMG F1 W11 rear suspension
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The W11’s rear suspension had a new geometry with the rear leg of the lower wishbone being higher and attached to the crash structure at a point much further back than we would normally see.
As always, the main reason for this was not mechanical, but the better aerodynamics, whereby the arm was brought into a more desirable position for the flow in the channel next to the diffuser.
Meanwhile, the inner anchorage point has been raised to reduce the airflow bottleneck where the diffuser ceiling is raised to hit the bottom of the crash structure and transmission.
This comes from the back and raises the drawbar’s inner attachment point in 2019 for similar reasons.
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