Aston Martin boss Cowell insists pressure should be on the team as he backs Alonso and Stroll to ‘both deliver’

Aston Martin boss Andy Cowell has backed the squad’s incumbent line-up of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll to deliver going forward, with the Team Principal insisting that the pressure should be on the team rather than the drivers.

Amid a raft of driver changes across the grid ahead of the 2025 season, Aston Martin are one of only two outfits to enter the year with an unchanged pairing from 2024 as Alonso and Stroll embark on their third campaign as team mates.

It comes amid recent rumours that the team had targeted Max Verstappen – who holds a contract to race for Red Bull through 2028 – in a £1 billion package, something that Cowell was quizzed on while speaking to media at the F1 75 Live event in London.

“We’re really, really lucky, we’ve got Lance and Fernando – [both have] great experience and they’re on long-term contracts,” said Cowell, who took on the role of Team Principal alongside his position as CEO in January.

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 18: Fernando Alonso of Spain and Aston Martin F1 Team speaks to the — Stroll and Alonso will enter into their third season as team mates at Aston Martin in 2025

“The key work for this team is to create a fast race car, and we didn’t create that for them last year and they get a lot of media pressure because of that. The pressure should come in our direction – we’ve got the job to create a fast race car for them, and I’m absolutely certain that they’re both going to deliver.”

After a rapid start to the 2023 season that saw Alonso claim six podiums in the opening eight races, Aston Martin’s form faded as the campaign progressed and the squad were unable to rectify this in 2024, finishing the year in a distant P5 with no rostrums to their name.

Pushed on whether the team had figured out why the AMR24 did not perform as expected – and if there was hope of progress in the year ahead or whether focus would instead be on the regulations change in 2026 – Cowell reflected positively on the improvements that the outfit have made since the 2024 season ended.

“I think we’ve got a reasonable understanding on last year’s car, and what we’ve worked on through the winter is to try and create a car that is more stable through corners, is more predictable to drive through the race, and we feel that that will reward us well with regards to race performance,” Cowell explained.

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“[There have also been] several areas where we can see that there were improvements to make, so we’ve worked on that as well through the winter. The aerodynamic package of the car is close on 100% new, a huge amount of effort put in at the campus by everyone.

“The aero release points were later than we’ve ever done before with a car, and that’s thanks to the investment that’s been put into the campus and the capability of the operations team in particular, but also the design group – both those groups have enabled the aero development team to spend several more weekends in the wind tunnel.

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“I’m looking forward to seeing that on track, see the results, and we’ll see how the on-track results correlate with the measurements that are done on campus.”