Aston Martin basking in ‘huge pressure’ but Stroll is patient
The air is thick with tension at Aston Martin F1, according to team boss Mike Krack. While acknowledging owner Lawrence Stroll's understanding of the need for time, Krack admits the squad is facing "huge pressure" to turn around its fortunes.
Aston Martin's struggles this season have come after a remarkable 2023 campaign. The team rocketed from a seventh-place finish in 2022 to secure six podiums in the first eight races of last year.
With Fernando Alonso regularly challenging Red Bull for the lead, Aston Martin looked poised for a sustained push at the front of the grid.
However, the Silverstone-based outfit’s upward trajectory stalled in the second half of 2023 and has so far failed to recover its momentum.
A significant upgrade package introduced on its AMR24 design at Imola back in May failed to deliver its expected performance boost, pushing Aston further astray from its Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes rivals.
According to Krack, the team’s impressive results in the first half of 2023 weren’t entirely representative of the outfit’s true standing.
"It was flattering and probably not a true reflection of where we really were as a team ... others were underperforming and we were overperforming in the competitive order,” he said, speaking to Motorsport.com.
But in the context of the heavy investments made by team owner Lawrence Stroll, which have led to state-of-the-art facilities and a roster of talented personnel, 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 aspects,” Krack replied when asked about Stroll’s current view on his team’s affairs.
“One is: what progress do you make compared to the competition over the years? Where you have ambitious targets and you try to manage them.
"That is something that I think you have a discussion [about] and you have a plan in place and you know that you cannot go from seventh to first. It's not possible.
“You need, ‘this and this and this’. You have seen some of what we need in the future. That is one point and I think there is a certain amount of reality or realism and also patience.
“But then when you go and you zoom in and you bring upgrades and they are not delivering the performance that they should, then the pressure is increasing and rightly so.
“I think the perception from outside is not wrong or erroneous. The perception inside is huge pressure because [the Imola upgrade] doesn't deliver what you were expected to deliver and trying to solve this as quick as possible [is now the aim] and in that point, I understand also that there is less patience.
“Now, Lawrence has been in this business for long. He is very knowledgeable of how Formula 1 works, he knows also that if you have something that didn't work until you have something better, it takes time – to make new parts, to make this to make that.
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“So, I think it's a mix between the two. It is a situation that we would not like to be in.
“We started the season in fifth, wanted to get closer, had a plan to get closer to the top cars, and have not delivered that.”
While tackling its performance issues, Aston Martin is also set to undergo a management change, with former Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell set to take over as group CEO in October.
However, it remains to be seen if this restructuring will help the team address their current struggles and recapture the early promise they showed in 2023.
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