Formula 1: Will Vettel’s car be slimmed down?

The fact is: Aston Martin is approaching the new season flexibly. The wide, heavily undercut sidepods that caused some pundits to frown might soon be a thing of the past.
Technical Director Andy Green had already emphasized during the presentation: “We quickly realized that there were several possible solutions for the sidepods alone. We have designed the car in such a way that we do not find ourselves in a development dead end here. If we notice that we are wrong with a solution, we can react.” A B version of the Aston Martin was quickly in the room.
As part of the Bahrain tests, head of development Tom McCullough has now confirmed this: “We have developed the car in the wind tunnel, which visually doesn’t have much in common with today’s car. And I am convinced that we are not the only ones doing this.”

Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin should look completely different again in the wind tunnel.
McCullough also refers to his chief technology officer’s statement on the day of the unveiling: “Andy Green said that we didn’t want to go down a dead end. This now gives us the freedom to work on fresh solutions. My guess is that the cars will converge over the months, although not everyone will bring extreme solutions to the car like we’ve seen so far.”
Compared to the lean Mercedes, Vettel’s green racer looks almost fat. But a look at the different concepts on the starting grid shows that the regulations allow for different solutions in the area of the sidepods. “Especially with this topic, we also considered many different approaches in the concept phase,” admits McCullough. “Now we look at the opponents’ solutions, just like the aerodynamicists of all teams do. We will see a lot of new things here and there over the coming months.”
The denial of a B version of the Aston Martin definitely sounds different.