Aston Martin must be self-critical over concerning F1 trend

Team principal Mike Krack has conceded Aston Martin must be self-critical in its analysis as to why it has failed to sufficiently improve its Formula 1 machinery two seasons in a row.

The Silverstone-based outfit began the 2023 campaign in flying form, as Fernando Alonso established himself as Max Verstappen’s nearest challenger early on, while Lance Stroll impressed when still recovering from a pre-season injury.

But Aston Martin failed to kick on, struggling to keep up with development to its AMR23 compared to rival teams and eventually finished fifth in the constructors’ standings.

It was a similar story last term, but with the team starting off fifth-fastest on the grid and, while consolidating its position in the table, the AMR24 was often shuffled down the order as the year went on, with Haas, Alpine and RB getting ahead on occasion once they had developed their challengers.

Summing up the season when speaking to Motorsport.com, Krack said: “We delivered below expectation, so we cannot be happy with how our season went.

“We stay in P5, but had the championship started in the summer, we would not finish in P5. So, I think in all we need to reflect on the season and see it very critically.

“The steps that we have brought to the car have not managed to improve the car and there is a little bit of parallel last year in all that. The difference is that we have started better last year and we have not started at that same high level this year.

“So, I think there’s plenty for us to look at in terms of how we how we do these things because we have now, two years in a row, not really managed to improve from where we started but rather slipped back.”

When put to him that low-hanging fruit for rivals reflected badly on Aston Martin, Krack insisted the team must look within, adding: “The fact is that, independent of the others, you have a baseline car at the start of the year and you have a car at the end of the year, and you have some steps in between.

“I think the development curve from others has been much better than ours. Independent of where we have finished, the finishing positions of the first eight or nine races of 2023 has added a lot of pressure on the whole system. But the result, at the end of the day, whether you start the year in fifth fastest – or fourth, depending on how you look at it this year – or you started in second or third fastest, does not change the picture.

“It changed the picture to the outside. Like: ‘they have been so good and now they are so bad’. But, when I take the competitiveness, or the pecking order, when you take that out, you have a car that you start the season [with] and you have the car that you end the season [with] – how much have we improved it? I think here others have done a better job two years in a row and that is something that we need to really look at.”

Alonso and Stroll picked up 13 top-10 finishes between them in the first half of last season but managed only seven points-scoring finishes in the second half, all of which earned by the two-time champion, with the team reneging on some upgrades late in the season.

Asked whether the car had improved across the season, Krack replied: “We are always trying to be honest with ourselves and try to gauge that.

“It is a question where often you say, ‘we have improved it in this area, but we have made it probably worse in this area’. So, I don’t think that you will always have, like, ‘we made it better in every area’. Maybe when you start like this [way off the pace].

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“But, seriously, I think it’s a concern. Because, if you have done that twice in a row, it’s not a one-off. It’s something you have to look at in your system.

“The progress that we wanted to make – you formulate some targets and you do not achieve them. You do not deliver the performance that you want to deliver. You can put it down to all kinds of areas. You can say, ‘it’s not correlating the way it should’. But then others are using the same tunnel, for example; if you go about aerodynamics [and say] ‘it’s not correlating’, why are the others correlating and making progress?

“So, you have to be critical with yourself. You cannot just say, ‘it’s this, it’s this’. The level is too high to not look very thoroughly about what you are doing.

“Then you have to be self-critical. Did we take the right decisions at the right times? Should we have waited with maybe one or two steps until they are really proven properly? Or did we just rush into things because the pressure is high? So, it is all questions that we have to ask ourselves – critically – and take the right conclusions from it.”