The air is fraught with tension at Aston Martin F1, according to team boss Mike Krack. While acknowledging that owner Lawrence Stroll understands the lack of time, Krack admits that the team faces “tremendous pressure” to turn things around.
Aston Martin’s struggles this season came after a 2023 campaign. The team went from a seventh-place finish in 2022 to six podiums in the first eight races of last year.
With Fernando Alonso challenging Red Bull for the lead, Aston Martin looked set for a sustained push towards the front of the grid.
However, the Silverstone-based company’s upward trajectory stalled in the second half of 2023 and has failed to regain momentum.
A series of upgrades introduced to its AMR24 design at Imola last May failed to deliver the expected functionality improvement, further distancing Aston from rivals Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.
According to Krack, the team’s impressive effects in the first part of 2023 were fully representative of the team’s true position.
“It was flattering and probably didn’t reflect how it should reflect where we really were as a team. . . The rest underperformed and we were outperforming in the competitive order,” he told Motorsport. com.
But in contrast to the backdrop of heavy investments made through team owner Lawrence Stroll that have resulted in amenities and a talented staff, the Canadian billionaire would be forgiven for growing impatient with the team’s lack of expected progress and competitive performance.
“Well, I think there are two sides,” Krack replied when asked about Stroll’s current view on his team’s affairs.
“The first is: what progress have you made at the festival over the years? Where you have ambitious goals and you strive to manage them.
“It’s anything I think you have a discussion and you have a plan in position and you know you can’t go from seventh to first. That’s not possible.
“You want ‘this, this and that. ‘” You’ve noticed some of what we want in the future. That’s one point and I think there’s a certain amount of truth or realism and also patience.
“But then when you reach out and make updates and they don’t work as well as they should, then the tension increases, and rightly so.
“I believe that belief on the outside is neither false nor wrong. The belief in the inside is a huge tension because [the Imola update] doesn’t give what you expected and looking to solve this challenge as temporarily as possible [it’s now the goal] and at this point I also perceive that there is less patience.
“Now, Lawrence has been in this business for a long time. He knows very well how Formula 1 works, and he also knows that if you have something that doesn’t work until you have something better, it takes time to make new parts. Do this, do that. .
©AstonMartin
“So, I think it’s a combination between the two. This is a scenario in which we would not like to place ourselves.
“We were in fifth position during the season, we were looking to get closer, we had a plan to get closer to the most productive cars, and we didn’t achieve it.
As it addresses its functionality issues, Aston Martin is also expected to undergo a management change, with former Mercedes engine leader Andy Cowell taking over as company boss in October.
However, it remains to be seen whether this restructuring will allow the team to overcome its existing difficulties and return to the initial promise it showed in 2023.
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