The Aston Martin “difficult to drive” at Imola
An eventful weekend at Imola left Aston Martin with just two points, with team boss Mike Krack explaining that the improvements made may have made the single-seater « difficult to drive ».
Aston Martin’s major evolution at Imola, which included a redesigned floor, a new front wing, and a diffuser, was tested by Fernando Alonso during free practice 1 before Lance Stroll also received the parts from free practice 2.
However, during a weekend where other teams also introduced new parts or adjusted their cars in Miami, Aston Martin’s improvements may have brought absolute performance but not relative competitiveness.
Alonso’s weekend was derailed by an accident at Rivazza during Free Practice 3, and after intensive repairs by the Silverstone team, the Spaniard was barely able to take part in qualifying. But another off-track excursion in Q1 at Tamburello led Alonso back to the pits with more issues, finishing the session in 18th place. With overtaking proving difficult, his race became a test, out of the points contention, as the team opted to make adjustments and start from the pit lane.
Stroll did not do much better by qualifying 13th, although he scored two points by finishing 9th. According to Mike Krack, Alonso’s off-track excursions showed that the AMR24 is difficult to drive at the moment despite some slight improvement. “At Imola, when you start from where we started, it is difficult,” Krack said after the race. “We leave with two points, I think it was a good result, it shows that the car is still capable of doing things.”
Aston Martin is falling behind.
« But we also saw that it is difficult to drive. We had a few off-track moments during the weekend. Yesterday’s one actually impacted us the most because we were really struggling from that moment on. »
« We wanted to learn more, which is why we chose to move away from the standard route and modify the car to see if we could make it easier to drive. We wanted to do better than what we did. But this was also somewhat compromised by the events of Saturday. »
After the qualifications, Stroll emphasized that the update package at Imola, described as part of an aggressive program by technical director Dan Fallows, simply wasn’t sufficient to keep up with his direct rivals.
Aston Martin is in danger of falling even further behind the top four while seeing Racing Bulls making progress since Miami. But although Krack took care not to draw hasty conclusions after Imola, suggesting that the situation could be different in Monaco and Montreal, he acknowledged that the AMR24 will soon need more power.
« We are not satisfied with two points, that’s clear. But other people are also making improvements, so it’s always a relative game.
« It’s difficult, we must not underestimate this. I think that, except for one team, everyone has a full list of updates, which shows how competitive the field is. We really need to keep pushing and bringing more innovations.
