Aston Martin has lured one of Adrian Newey’s former Red Bull lieutenants back to Formula 1 to help drive forward its simulation tools.
The Race can reveal that Giles Wood, who worked closely with Newey as he headed up Red Bull’s simulation and analysis department during its golden era of success with Sebastian Vettel, has been convinced to return to F1 after a recent spell working with Apple on autonomous technologies.
Wood has joined Aston Martin as its simulation and vehicle modelling director, and will play a critical role in delivering improvements to an area of performance that Newey has singled out as lacking right now.
During an appearance at the Monaco Grand Prix, Newey had said that Aston Martin’s simulator correlation was behind where it needed to be.
“I think it is fair to say that some of our tools are weak, particularly the driver in the loop simulator,” Newey said in Monte Carlo.
"It needs a lot of work because it's not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool. Not having that is a limitation.
“But we've just got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be. But that's probably a two-year project in truth.”
The appointment of Wood, who will renew a strong working relationship he built up with Newey as they together helped Red Bull achieve multiple world titles with Vettel from 2010 to 2013, will be a big boost to Newey’s hopes of getting things sorted much quicker than feared.
Wood has huge expertise in understanding simulation tools, having begun his F1 career as simulation lead at McLaren from 2004 to 2006, before moving to Red Bull where he became chief engineer and then head of simulation/analysis from 2007 to 2014.
After a spell working at Red Bull Advanced Technologies from 2014 until 2017, he moved to California to work with Apple – but has since been convinced to begin a working relationship with Newey again.
New aero chief
Alongside the efforts to improve its simulation tools, Aston Martin has been on a recruitment drive to bolster areas where it feels it is behind the opposition – including in its aerodynamics department.
And that has also included the appointment of Gioacchino 'Jack' Vino as its new chief aerodynamicist.
Vino started his career as an aerodynamicist at Toyota and then Red Bull before a brief spell at Renault. He then moved to Mercedes in January 2012 as a senior aerodynamicist, before moving up the ranks to become chief aerodynamicist there.
He eventually left the team in November 2024, and officially started in his new role at Aston Martin in April.
Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell said that both Vino and Wood had hit the ground running as Newey continues to work on pushing things forward.
“Giles left F1 for a period of time, worked in California, and is now back looking after our modelling and simulation world,” Cowell told The Race.
“When you watch the interaction of those two guys with Adrian and the existing team, the energy and the determination is significantly higher.
“It's amazing how key hires like Adrian, but also the other individuals, just helps everything.
“It helps lift everybody. I'm not so sure it's the work rate, but it's the target setting.”
from The Race https://ift.tt/sTYRhH7
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