Chris Cronin starts the 2025 season in a new position – he has been appointed chief engineer of Aston Martin F1, his work and worries have increased, but here is how he assessed the results of the team’s preparation for the next championship.
Chris Cronin: “We have some idea of the capabilities of the AMR25, our new car, after testing, but we will have to wait until the Melbourne weekend to really find out. Even then, we will need to do a few Grands Prix on different types of tracks to get a full picture of the balance of power.
As always, it's hard to tell exactly how fast you are in relation to other teams during testing, and it's only after the first qualifying and the first race that we'll see who's capable of what.
The importance of the season-opening race weekend is also that it is only now that everyone will show their cards and demonstrate their real pace. It seems that many teams are at a similar level of strength, but this should not be surprising given that the regulations have remained stable for several years and the cars have become comparable in design.
So the fight promises to be very close, and even some nuances can significantly affect the results, so it is necessary to guarantee the optimization of all possible aspects.
Compared to last year, we have made progress in the areas of the car that we have found to have the greatest impact on lap times, but there are still a number of other areas that need to be addressed.
Overall, the results are about what we expected, and the AMR25's handling has improved. This is exactly what we were aiming for during the winter off-season…”
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