Aston Martin still wants to believe
The team has dropped from second place to fourth in the constructors' championship. Mike Krack, director of the Aston Martin team, claims to be leading a fierce fight for his team to climb back up the Formula 1 hierarchy.
Aston Martin is dropping in the constructors’ rankings! While the team based in Silverstone started the 2023 season with a bang, finishing on the podium six times in the first eight races with Fernando Alonso, in the following eight races, the team only made it onto the podium once and Lance Stroll has only scored 12 points since the Canadian Grand Prix behind the wheel of the other car.
Instead of fighting for second place with Mercedes and Ferrari as it had hoped, Aston is now involved in a battle for fourth place in the constructors’ championship with a 49-point advantage over McLaren. McLaren, which has experienced a complete resurgence after implementing several improvements to its car since Austria.
Aston Martin, which had nevertheless moved into its new state-of-the-art factory earlier in the year, has practically followed the opposite path. Mike Krack, the team director, simply believes that the team did not develop the AMR23 enough: « Some competitors have really made big progress, others less so, and it’s very simple. We didn’t do enough. I think it’s probably because other teams have closed the gap, rather than saying that the gap has massively widened. »
Krack confident but cautious
Krack emphasizes that enhancement packages will be coming to try to widen the gap and foster a positive momentum. « We would have liked to have more performance, but other improvements are still to come, so I am confident that we can increase the gap with McLaren and catch up to Ferrari and Mercedes. »
Mike Krack supported his team in order to maintain the necessary pace to stay ahead of McLaren for fourth place in the rankings. « It’s a fierce battle. I think we need to look at the upcoming races, we need to provide maximum reliability, which we didn’t do in Japan. We only had one car finish the race. From now on, we need to have the best possible operation, without making any real mistakes in the operations and focus on ourselves. We can’t have an influence on what others do. » Therefore, he explains that efforts must be made to stay ahead of McLaren until the end of the season. « I’m still confident. But we need to be better in terms of reliability. We need to be more competitive. »
