Former Formula 1 driver Marc Surer worries that Aston Martin’s decision to switch factories in the middle of the season will put them at a “huge disadvantage” and ruin their perfect form.
Aston Martin stated on Tuesday that the bulk of its employees had worked their first day in brand-new offices at their recently built Silverstone headquarters. Team owner Lawrence Stroll had heavily invested in preparing the new location for the team’s workforce.
Aston Martin has had a strong start to the 2023 season and may have been the biggest surprise of the year at this point. Fernando Alonso has won five podium finishes in as many races, pushing Aston Martin from ninth to second in the constructors standings.
The new Silverstone headquarters is only a few steps away from the team’s old building, which was constructed in 1991 and was originally home to Jordan. However, even though the office move is only a matter of meters for the team’s employees, ex-F1 driver Surer thinks it will disrupt the team’s flow during an already busy season.
“That can only be a disadvantage because the whole rhythm, the whole flow is disturbed,” Surer told Formel1.de. “We have such a full programme in Formula 1, all the analyses and all the processing and also the parts production have to go on non-stop.
“The factory move, to me, is a huge disadvantage for them.”
The team made a point of emphasizing how much they needed the new Aston Martin base to be established after having the opportunity to tour it while it was still being built last winter.
A large portion of their operations are still being run out of the original structures from when the team was founded as Jordan more than 30 years ago.
The team had outgrown their previous facilities at Silverstone, and this first move into “Building 1” (of three) for the majority of the team’s staff is something for which staff members will have been preparing themselves for some time.
This is due to their massive recruitment drive and the investment that has been made in the team over the past couple of years.
It is also difficult to convey how much larger the new factory is than their old buildings, with brand-new amenities to match and a focus on open-plan offices to try and foster an active work environment for the squad.
Although Surer is probably right that it will take some time for office staff to adjust to their new environment in the short term, Aston Martin have reached a significant milestone in their plans for the future, and it’s difficult to see how it will be much of a disadvantage in the long run.
Buildings 2 and 3 will house an entirely new wind tunnel and simulator, and they will all be interconnected. The wind tunnel is scheduled for completion next year.
