Aston Martin mid-season review: Too little, too late?

As we head into the second half of the 2025 Formula One season after a lengthy summer break, our F1 writers take you through the state of play with each team on the grid.

Aston Martin has endured a generally rocky start to the 2025 season | Credit: Formula One

Heading into the summer break, Aston Martin has momentum on their side while they’re locked firmly in the mid-field battle to become the best of the rest.

A double points finish in Hungary sets them in the right direction for the second half of the season, however their pace has been nowhere near where they should be given not only their relative consistency in 2024, but the series of resources they’ve amassed recently.

This time last year, Aston Martin had comfortably secured their fifth place in the Constructors’ with 73 points – Racing Bulls 39 points adrift in sixth. Flash forward to 2025, they’ve been usurped by Williams who have surged up the standings and capitalised on Aston Martin’s tough start to the season. 

With 18 points separating the two and 10 rounds remaining, the winner of this battle will largely be decided by whether or not Aston Martin can bounce back after an underwhelming first half of the year.

Aston Martin inaugurated their 2025 campaign with the high-profile signing of one of Formula One’s most decorated engineers, Adrian Newey. Another key managerial reset was the appointment of Andy Cowell as Team Principal, replacing Mike Krack.

Amidst these significant changes to the team, one thing remained a constant entering this season – the driver lineup of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. 

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll enter their third year as Aston Martin teammates | Credit: Formula One

One of two teams to retain the same lineup as 2024, alongside McLaren, Aston Martin were banking on this stability coupled with a recalibrated team hierarchy to return to the glory days of the early 2023 season, when Alonso was enjoying a healthy run of podiums across the opening rounds.

Midway into that year, their results fell sharply off a cliff. Ever since, the team seems to continue scratching their heads over their deteriorating competitiveness despite having a head start on state of the art facilities compared to their mid-field rivals. 

Both Alonso and Stroll are currently one point outside the top 10 in the Drivers’ standings, level on 26 points each. In the head-to-head data, Alonso leads in both the Grand Prix and qualifying comparisons: 9-5 and 14-0 respectively.

While the teammates are on equal footing in points, this doesn’t reveal the full picture as the pair have had dramatically different seasons.

Alonso’s year commenced with his worst start to an F1 season since his debut in 2001, with a point-less streak that spanned eight rounds. Stroll meanwhile immediately scored points in the first two rounds at Australia and China, while on the other side of the garage, Alonso retired in both races.

Fernando Alonso began the season with a DNF in Australia | Credit Formula One

The Spaniard’s momentum picked up just in time for his home Grand Prix where he managed a ninth place finish. However at that point of the season, it seemed impossible that both Aston drivers could have a good weekend together, with Stroll withdrawing from the Spanish Grand Prix after complications with a previously injured wrist.

Over the last five races, Alonso has scored points in all but one, joined by Stroll on two occasions. While Aston Martin’s season seems to finally be looking up, one can’t help but wonder if it’s too little, too late. 

High point

Aston Martin’s highest points haul thus far came at the Hungarian Grand Prix, with a P5 for Alonso and P7 for Stroll. 

At the outset, it looked likely to be another poor weekend for the British squad after Alonso sat out the first practice due to a muscular injury in his back. 

However, the Spaniard quickly bounced back in time for the next session, and the two Aston Martin drivers slotted right behind the top three with their newfound pace.

Despite their strong free practice results, the team kept their heads down as on many occasions this season, their Friday pace has been deceptive – failing to produce substantial qualifying results. This time however, their practice prowess was the real deal. Alonso and Stroll achieved the team’s joint best qualifying of 2025 with a fifth and sixth place respectively.

Their Sunday went swimmingly too, with Alonso defending his P5 from the faster gaggle of cars around him and matching the team’s best result of the season. Stroll came home in seventh, pipped by Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto at the start.

Aston Martin's best result so far was fifth and seventh in Hungary | Credit: Formula One

The team’s rapid turnaround lifted them to sixth in the standings, edging out Sauber by one point.

Low point

While Alonso’s back-to-back DNFs at the season start definitely cost the team valuable points, their rock-bottom as a team in the 14 rounds so far came at the Emilia-Romagna and Monaco Grands Prix.

Arriving for the European rounds with a host of upgrades to the AMR25, both cars managed a Q3 appearance for the first time in 2025 at Imola. Heading into race day, the team were expecting a steady conversion of grid positions to points.

Unfortunately, their hard-earned starting positions quickly amounted to nothing, as disastrous strategy calls and tough luck unravelled their race. Pitting early before a Virtual Safety Car and having no viable compounds left during a subsequent Safety Car left both cars tumbling out of the points. 

This gutting weekend was immediately followed by another round where the promise of points was tantalisingly close on Saturday, but during the race, all hopes came crashing down.

This time at Monaco, where a solid qualifying means more than half the job is done ahead of Sunday, Stroll was hit with a slew of grid penalties that saw him start on the back-row. The Canadian was unable to climb up the ranks during the race, and settled for 15th in the slow, action-less trundle to the chequered flag.

Stroll struggled in Monaco after grid penalties for a collision during practice and impeding in Q1 | Credit: Formula One

Meanwhile, Alonso was set to start sixth following a grid-drop for Lewis Hamilton bumped him up a place. After running in points-contention for 37 laps, the Spaniard’s engine began to smoke, leading to a third retirement of the season.   

The Belgian Grand Prix was another weekend to forget for Aston Martin, where they recorded their worst ever qualifying result in its F1 history at Spa, locking out the back-row and unable to make much progress on Sunday.

Looking ahead

With 10 rounds to go, Aston Martin will be hoping their Hungarian success story wasn’t a one off. Momentum is on their side, but whether the notoriously peaky AMR25 can be tamed on the sundry upcoming circuits remains to be seen.

The improvements with the Imola package, the remodelled floor in Silverstone and a new front wing paid dividends at the Hungaroring – the track conditions making Aston Martin one of the fastest cars that weekend.   

However, whether these upgrades can continue to propel the sixth-placed team on an upward trajectory ahead of 2026 will be a crucial narrative to keep an eye on.

Big changes are in store for Aston Martin, and the second-half of this season will be pivotal in establishing the groundwork ahead of 2026, when they will partner with Honda to become a works team in the new regulatory era.

Led by Newey at the helm and a new chapter beginning with Honda, the Silverstone outfit has much to look forward to but their 2025 season will be the decisive litmus test of their future competitiveness.