HALF TERM REPORT: Aston Martin’s best and worst moments from 2025 so far and driver head-to-heads

Aston Martin ended 2024 as ‘best of the rest’ in fifth place of the Teams’ Championship, but the AMR25’s lack of pace made for a tougher start to this year’s campaign. However, more regular points finishes in recent times have moved the squad up the order in the midfield battle, giving them optimism for the remainder of the season. Here’s the British outfit’s half term report…

Best finish

Fernando Alonso – 5th in Hungary

While Lance Stroll collected points in the opening two races of the season – as well as taking fifth place in the Miami Sprint at Round 6 – the start of 2025 was generally challenging for Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso having to wait until Round 9 in Spain to record his first top-10 finish.

Upgrades brought during the European triple header appeared to help the team in making steps forward; since Barcelona, Alonso has gone on to grab points at every weekend with the exception of the squad’s difficult outing at the Belgian Grand Prix.

This run culminated in a season-best P5 for the two-time World Champion in Hungary, a result made all the sweeter by Stroll making it a double points finish in P7.

Qualifying head-to-head

Alonso 14-0 Stroll

Alonso has outqualified Stroll at every weekend so far in 2025; in fact, the latter has not placed ahead of his team mate on the grid since the 2024 British Grand Prix.

Saturdays have proven particularly tough for Stroll during this campaign, the Canadian having exited Qualifying in Q1 on nine occasions. His highest grid slot of the season came with a P6 at the Hungaroring, a weekend in which Alonso equalled his own previous best by claiming P5.

Race head-to-head

Alonso 9-5 Stroll

It has also been advantage Alonso on Sundays, with the veteran racer beating his fellow Aston Martin driver on nine occasions during the first half of the season. Stroll, it should be noted, was absent on one of these outings, having withdrawn from the Spanish Grand Prix in order to undergo a medical procedure owing to pain in his hand and wrist.

In terms of the points situation, both drivers are equal on 26 apiece, putting Alonso 11th and Stroll 12th in the Drivers’ Championship. Their frequency of scoring is also close, with Stroll recording four top-10 Grand Prix finishes in comparison to five for Alonso.

Best moment

Given that the team endured a particularly difficult weekend at Spa-Francorchamps (more on which below), their dramatic turnaround just one week later at the Hungarian Grand Prix was nothing short of astonishing.

The event got off to a somewhat uncertain start for Aston Martin when it was confirmed that Alonso would miss first practice due to a muscular injury in his back, meaning that reserve driver Felipe Drugovich stepped in for the session.

After returning with a P5 finish in FP2, Alonso showed no signs of the issue slowing him down as he went on to take the same position in Saturday’s Qualifying, before then converting it into a final result on race day. With Stroll adding to the points tally in seventh, it marked a positive way for the squad to sign off the first half of the season.

Worst moment

A run of point-less races between Japan and Monaco – with the exception of Stroll’s Miami Sprint result – suggested that the prospects were bleak for Aston Martin in 2025; indeed, Alonso stated after again missing out in Saudi Arabia that the team would “need to get used” to not scoring.

Running only one driver in Spain – as well as facing uncertainty over Alonso’s participation on Friday in Hungary – would also have been challenging for the team, but perhaps the toughest moment of all came at Round 13 in Belgium.

Having arrived into the event off the back of a double points outing at Silverstone, the fact that both cars placed last in Qualifying was a shock – and, after being unable to progress beyond P14 and P17 on race day, the team were left with plenty of data analysis to carry out on the new package that they had brought to the track.

Going forward

It is no secret that, since his arrival in March, Aston Martin’s new Managing Technical Partner Adrian Newey has been focused on preparing for the 2026 regulations. As such, following their recent upgrades push, the team are likely to now be switching their development plans to next season.

However, the British outfit have clearly not given up on this year and, having ended the first half of the campaign on a positive note, will be hoping to carry those learnings forwards as they look to maximise their package during the remaining 10 races.

Perhaps a key aspect of this will be in trying to understand the swings in performance experienced across different Grands Prix, with the most notable example being their aforementioned switch from the back row in Belgium through to double points at the Hungaroring.

Following the squad’s best result of the season in Budapest – which saw them move from P8 to P6 in the Teams’ Standings, putting them just 18 points behind fifth-placed Williams – Alonso voiced his hopes for the remainder of the campaign as he conceded: “[I’m] definitely more optimistic for the second part of the year. We really needed this result.

“Spa last week we were at the bottom of the list and now we are P5 and P7, so we need to learn what is the difference between the two tracks, what we did different to the car and try to apply those learnings into the next race."