The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team’s new Silverstone factory will be a ‘game changer’ according to Team Principal Mike Krack.
Aston Martin are still using the same factory that the Jordan F1 Team first used during their debut season in Formula 1 back in 1991. And the factory has seen all of the subsequent teams between Jordan and Aston Martin, including the Midland F1 Team, Spyker F1 Team, Sahara Force India F1 Team and BWT Racing Point F1 Team.
The current factory is undersized for Aston Martin’s needs, with a temporary stack of cabins being used as office space alongside the main building, while they currently use the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s wind tunnel.
The new factory, which is due to open in May, will enable everyone to work under one roof without the need of using remote locations, while their own wind tunnel should be ready to use in 2024.
“The fact that you can talk to people without having to arrange meetings, it facilitates the dialogue massively,” Krack is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.
“The remote locations that we have, so you either need to pick up the phone or organise something, sometimes this is a natural barrier of more exchange.
“And the other thing is also logistics, we should not forget to bring things from left to right or A to B, it will be massively different and massively easier. From that point of view, I fully agree with using the word game changer, for team dynamics and logistics.”
Technical Director Dan Fallows says the change to a new factory will be hugely beneficial to Aston Martin, and he expects the technical conversations to improve once they move in later this year.
“I think it’ll change it significantly,” Fallows said. “We’ve got this small factory here and these modular buildings where we have some people who are not necessarily designing parts of the car at the moment, but they are very connected to our design process, and having them not in the same room makes it slightly more difficult to communicate with them.
“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, and it makes a huge difference in terms of those interactions.
“Particularly those serendipitous interactions where you can have a chat with somebody about one thing and go on to lots of other things, and they often end up being the most creative conversations. That’s what we’re trying to build.”
And Fallows believes that the new factory will help the team save money in the long run, as they will be able to make more things themselves.
“You have the ability to make everything yourself, but you can also decide to buy or make it, and you can make things faster,” Fallows added.
“So if you can make them also cheaper, it means you can make more. You can have one or two more upgrades than before due to time and also financial reasons you could not do. From that point of view, I think it’s a good step.
“They are all positive steps for us. Building this team is a journey, and each of these things are milestones in that journey, they all contribute to our ability to operate at the level we want to operate at.
“The last phases of it, which is building three which is going to be the employee experience, the wellness side of things, the gym and things, I think are almost as important as the initial stages.
“But I think demonstrating what we are going for, that we are looking at these things is almost part of the solution itself.
“That’s what engages people, knowing that we are thinking about them, we want them to operate at a good level, but we also want them to feel like they’re supported and part of a team they want to be a part of.”
