Inside Aston Martin’s new £200m ‘game changer’ F1 factory

For its first year as Aston Martin after the rebranding of Racing Point, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel arrived for the final two seasons of his F1 career. For 2023, his seat will be taken by Fernando Alonso, another all-time great who ditched Alpine in favour of Aston Martin.

Engineering talent has arrived from throughout the grid, bolstering a team that, after years of punching above its weight on a shoestring budget, now has the might to mount a charge for the very front of the grid.

Back in March 2021, Stroll outlined a five-year plan for Aston Martin to be challenging for F1 titles, with a big part of the blueprint being a new, state-of-the-art factory out of which it will operate. Last September, ground was broken on the 37,000-square metre site around the existing factory at Silverstone, once home to the team’s distant predecessor, Jordan, with the goal of having it up and running in 2023.

Last week, Motorsport.com was among a select group of media to pay a visit to Aston Martin’s new factory and see how plans were advancing for what promises to be a game changer for the team in its push to fight for world titles.

When ground was broken on the site at Silverstone, Stroll explained that he wanted the new Aston Martin factory to be “the reverse of what Ron Dennis did” with the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking: prioritising function, not aesthetics.

The factory is being built in three chunks, the first of which is set to be completed in May 2023. This will be the main building for the race team, where the car will be designed and out of which all of the major operations will be conducted. The second building to open will be home to the new wind tunnel, which is set to open in Q3 of 2024, before a third building is then opened as an employee experience and events space on the site of the existing factory. The three buildings will be connected by bridges.

Although there is still plenty to be done before it can open, the main building is quickly taking shape. The race team will base its operations on the ground floor, and has been heavily involved in ensuring the design of the building meets their needs and there is the correct flow between all the departments. Small details such as cabinet or drawer placement can have a big impact on work processes, making it important for them to be considered and implemented accordingly. It’s function over fashion.

Upstairs in the factory will be an open-plan technical office, something technical director Dan Fallows, formerly of Red Bull, is confident can be conducive to encouraging creativity when it comes to car design.

“I’ve been in a big, open-plan office before with the ability to be able to walk around and talk to people very easily,” he says. “It makes a huge difference in terms of those interactions, particularly those serendipitous interactions where you can have a chat with somebody where you have a chat about one thing and go on to lots of other…