No fixation on McLaren for Aston Martin
Mike Krack, Aston Martin's team principal, does not want his team to rush into a constructors' championship race. After Lance Stroll's 5th place and Fernando Alonso's 8th place in Las Vegas, Aston has reduced the gap to 11 points before the season finale at Yas Marina this weekend.
Aston Martin was ahead of McLaren for most of the season until the Papayas took fourth place in the constructor’s world championship after the US GP. But with Lance Stroll’s recent good performances, Aston Martin is now just 11 points behind McLaren.
When asked if his team was focused on the race against McLaren, Mike Krack replied that they simply needed to get the best possible results. For me, this doesn’t change anything compared to two or three races ago.
The first thing is that we need to have a fast car in Abu Dhabi because we are behind. […] We need to do our best, and then we will see what the outcome is.
Krack minimized the possibility that his team has now found its rhythm, after being less successful when experimenting with different aerodynamic packages. “We weren’t lost before,” he said. “I think it may be arrogant to say that we know everything. I’ve said it multiple times, cars are very complex. I think we still have a lot to learn. So I won’t say that we’re on top of everything. But we have learned a lot this year.”
Stroll’s progress is felt
Mike Krack spoke about the performances of his drivers. « It was a good race, but it was also a good race two weeks ago. I think the key in Las Vegas was to have a good understanding of the tires and the strategy. It was always planned to do something like what we did there. »
Lance Stroll has (finally!) become an important piece in the race for fourth place for Aston Martin. The Canadian notably achieved fifth place in Interlagos and Las Vegas. He started 19th, after being penalized on the grid in the latter. His ability to avoid trouble in the first turn greatly helped his comeback.
« There was a bit of luck at the beginning to gain a lot of positions. When you look at who still had hard tires and who didn’t, except for Esteban Ocon, everyone who didn’t make two pit stops lost time,” says Mike Krack.
For Aston Martin’s team principal, Stroll has regained his enthusiasm after a bad series of mechanical problems and retirements. « What happens is that he is starting to gain confidence, the results are coming, and then you become more efficient », declared Krack. « He was absent in Q2 on Friday, but it wasn’t a big deal because he is building this confidence. These are things that you can’t really measure ».
It’s nice to see that he really managed his tires well today, and then he was able to overtake. So, I think that overall, when you put all of this together, the results are coming.
Regarding Alonso’s incident on the first lap, he just said that he was surprised by the low grip and spun out, but I don’t know if it was related to oil or dust before concluding that it was really tricky. I don’t know what happened with Lando […]. The tire pressure was still low. Already, doing consecutive laps on the grid, for all the drivers, was really tough.
