Aston Martin romps in another Red Bull employee, this time their F1 pit-stop designer

Aston Martin hired Red Bull's former pit gear and project design engineer, Andor Hegedus, as their Senior Project Designer.

The improvement in Aston Martin's performance came along with them hiring experienced crew from different teams. Earlier, they had hired Dan Fallows and Andrew Alessi from Red Bull, and carrying the trend forward, they hired Andor Hegedus. He had been with the Milton Keynes-based team for almost a decade, first joining as their Pit Gear Engineer and then getting promoted to Project Design Engineer.

Earlier in 2022, when Fallows was questioned about Aston Martin hiring crew from different teams, he revealed that it helped them understand how those teams were working.

"We’re keen to learn from what other people do well," Motorsport quoted him."

"And it’s something I’ve always found, when you recruit people there is always something you can learn that other teams are doing, but also we’ve been fortunate enough to recruit some very talented and experienced people who have their own ideas about what makes a car go fast."

Aston Martin did manage to be much more competitive than their earlier seasons in the sport. Fernando Alonso achieved a whopping eight podiums throughout the season, finishing fourth in the championship. The team was also fifth with a 160-point lead from Alpine in sixth place.

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Aston Martin knows the direction to work in for the 2024 Challenger

2023 started extremely well for the team that was struggling to score points in the earlier season. Despite the positive development of the car, Aston Martin took a considerable hit, and their performance went down. The team was getting back into the midfield, however, they were able to make a recovery and get competitive again.

As team principal Mike Krack explained, this helped them understand the car better and also assisted in setting a developmental goal for the 2024 season. F1 quoted him:

"We understood a great deal, we know what we want to do for 2024 and the direction we need to go in with next year’s car – but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to turn up at the season-opener in Bahrain next year and be fighting for the race win."

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will continue to drive for the team in 2024 as well. With the pace the car had in the previous season, it is expected that they will continue to compete above the midfield with the top teams.