“If you don’t believe in Aston Martin, I would advise you to go to the Silverstone circuit. If you turn right only when entering the circuit, you will see the entire new Aston Martin factory. Impressed. I prefer not to talk much. Seeing is believing. when they compete in the Grand Prix, UK, A lot of people go, and the best thing is to see it with your own eyes.”.was told Pedro de la RosaAn Aston Martin ambassador told the newspaper in December 2022 that it’s been more than three months since the green car stunned everyone on the single-seater podium with Alonso outstanding in the first half of the 2023 track. And now, at the British F1 GP, MD heard Catalan and entered the main building of the new headquarters with the international press. he was right he is impressed many.

Pillar of a huge project

Aston Martin, billionaire Lawrence Stroll We are at the forefront of this exciting journey that started last year. Since then they have had a clear goal of becoming a big F1 team. Like Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, we have a five-year winning plan. To do this, they had a modest team base, but they knew how to squeeze resources to perfection to achieve wonders. racing point. In other words, the team and headquarters belonged to the former Force India team, or the former Jordan, with an outdated little factory built in the early ’90s with many flaws.

With its head office base and team structure, Stroll made it clear that to win, more than anything else, it takes talent, human talent. That’s why he signed with some of the best teams, most notably Dan Fallows’ engineer., technical leader The great ideologue of the Green Car who welcomed everyone with a smile in the central aisle of the Green Car yesterday. Building 1 of Aston Martin’s new campus. he also Double champion Fernando Alonso is the leader of the track. And two more things were missing. Maximum performance in the manufacturing process and efficiency in building the cars of the future. For this he needed a factory on the cutting edge of technology. And that gem is already a reality.

millionaire investment

Aston Martin has invested over £250m in this. “That’s unbelievable”Some of the company representatives who were present yesterday before we agreed said they were hallucinating from what they saw. And we know that each and every one of his 700 employees who will be working there have been thoroughly impressed with the step from the old headquarters to the new. Just a few years ago something unexpected happened.

From the outside, the transformation is already impressive at first glance. To see it, you need to stay away from it and center the helipad in the main parking lot. You will see a small old green building on your right. That’s the old factory. Huge headquarters on the left. A real monster. The previous building is completely hidden from the road on the left. This comparison is pretty cool and says a lot about the scale of what Aston Martin is up to with a new 37,000 square meter factory split across three buildings.

The most amazing thing…everything is designed with efficiency in mind

I entered the main building (Building No. 1). An Aston Martin F1 machine will welcome you. On the left is Alonso’s final podium in Canada. On the right is a showcase with leftovers from recent drawers. Enter another room. The brand’s striking road car shines in front of another showcase featuring previous years’ trophies won by teams such as Force India. At that time, Aston Martin staff were tasked with labeling the cars so that nothing could be seen by the press phone cameras. What they are trying to show is completely exclusive. When we unveiled our new temple for the first time It was just a few weeks after employees began moving into the new building.

As soon as I walked through the door, I realized that the employees were hallucinating what they had seen the day they moved into their new office. A factory designed to optimize your processes 100% with cutting-edge technology, vast spaces and top-level machinery. The team has done a miracle this year, producing a car that can compete with the best cars in a factory that many say is like a Formula 2 team. That’s why “miracles” happen. Aston Martin challenged the giants with cardboard swords, using tools light years ahead.

What can Aston Martin do on the course of the future when the entire process of manufacturing parts is as silky and top-notch? First, more time and more money.. now, He outsources most of the parts he makes because he didn’t have the right factories to make them. At this new headquarters, everything will be done from his home.

From 2026, Honda will use its own engine and will also manufacture its own gearbox and rear suspension, elements of which are currently purchased from engine customer Mercedes. And through 2024, Aston will have its own wind tunnel, discontinuing the rental of Mercedes’ wind tunnel at Brackley, another key component of its growth.

Design with two completely different floors

This concept of maximum efficiency and quality can be seen in the design of Building 1. Its shape is elongated and has two floors. Low, manufacturing. Upstairs is a huge open-plan room that allows design, manufacturing and other departments to communicate quickly, directly and fluidly, without physical barriers. Space is distributed at the bottom like a time axis. From the left, you can see huge rooms such as the autoclave room, the carbon fiber room, and the assembly room in the order of the process, and finally, on the right, you can see the workshop bay where four vehicles can be parked. Among them, another room is impressive, where several people are already working on new design concepts that incorporate the ideas of the 2024 car.

A total of 400 meters of corridors are free of walls and traps, allowing you to move from one department to another without any problems. There are rooms on one side and the other of the corridor, full of heavy machinery with the latest technology. The central corridor is also quite narrow compared to other spaces, so it stands out. It’s done on purpose. Aston Martin wasn’t looking for a beautiful factory (nor would it be), just functionality. So they were able to arrange the rooms on one side and the other, a few meters away from the central corridor.

2 more buildings

At the end of the corridor you can access the old factory. This small building has been modernized to improve the quality of life for its employees, with a gym and space for dining and hosting events.

Building 2 on the left is still under construction, but it has the crown jewel, the new wind tunnel, where we hope to start developing the car in 2024. And we need to add a toplevel to this. Add the simulator to it (although the current simulator is considered by everyone to be very good).

self-sufficiency

In addition to what I have said so far, I must add that the new headquarters runs on electricity generated annually by the solar panels on top. The building’s intelligent design means it will reduce its carbon footprint by 278 tons per year.

The ambitions of the team are huge. You can see that just by looking inside this masterpiece. An important piece to grab the last momentum for Aston Martin. Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Clack couldn’t stop smiling. The “best factory in the world,” he said, has already begun. And Fernando Alonso was there on Monday just after the Canadian Grand Prix and before the British Grand Prix. Between the new walls of the headquarters, the Asturian surprised his employees with a word full of strength and enthusiasm. It is already a dream factory for Alonso and Aston Martin.