Aston Martin know ‘starting too far to the back’ dulling race potential

Aston Martin boss Mike Krack says they are working to understand their lack of qualifying pace which is hampering their race potential.

It has not been a strong season so far for Aston Martin. They have failed toscore more than two points in any of the last five racesand on just one occasion have both Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel finished in the points in the same race.

The 2022 season has also been one of great change off the track as well. The team unveiled their car only to produce a drastically different version at the Spanish Grand Prix and they overcame the retirement of Vettel by announcing Fernando Alonso as Stroll’s partner for the 2023 season.

Perhaps the part that will be most perplexing to Krack and his team is the relative lack of pace in qualifying when compared to a race day. There has been an Aston Martin car in Q3 on just three occasions this season.Vettel’sP9 in Baku and Monaco remains the highlight.

布莱恩已经承认这种形式是阻碍the team’s chances and said they are working to try and understand what is causing the discrepancy.

“We seem to accumulate quite a good amount of positive races,” Krack said, as reported by Motorsport.com. “But we need to also start from the front. Because I think this has now been a couple of times already that we had very strong pace in the race, and made good calls.

“But we start too far to the back. That’s a problem. And you see that you score one, two, one, one, one point, and this is not enough to close the gap to constructors in front.”

“是的,我们试图在20tand it, honestly. Because if we knew why, then we will also try to change it. So it’s something that we really need to understand, what makes this.

“And the best approach to understand this is you always have to refer to lap time difference to the cars, and not ranking. Because with the tight midfield, it’s very, very often that if you get something wrong, you lose three or four positions.

“So if someone gets it really right, he gains three grid positions, or maybe even five or six, because the midfield is so tight, so it is very important to stay really objective, and really monitor the lap time difference that you’re having.

"Signing Fernando is a clear statement of our intent at@AstonMartinF1. We are not on the grid to make up the numbers."

Five months into his role as Team Principal, Mike Krack reflects on the season so far and what lies ahead as#WeClimbTogether.

— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1)August 8, 2022

“And then see where we have to where we have to improve. But it is clear that Saturdays we struggle more than Sundays.”

Krack has been in the job five months now and said he had “mixed feelings” about his tenure so far.

“I’m very happy with the way the team is running and the way I’ve been welcomed, the way things are evolving,” he said.

“But I’m very disappointed by our performance. And we would like to have progressed quicker than we do. And we are progressing. It’s measurable, but the others are at the same rate, or some maybe even faster.

“So that is that is one of the things that we need to see for the future. How can we progress faster? Or start on a better basis straight away?”

Aston Martin’s masterplan is stumbling after a year ofdisappointment

According to Forbes,Aston Martinowner Lawrence Stroll is worth $2.9 billion but he is so far finding out that money cannot buy you everything when it comes to Formula 1.

When the Canadian businessman announced in June of 2019 that his long-term goal of the then Racing Point team was to win a race and make it one of the strongest constructors on the grid, the money behind the project made it hard to disagree with him.

But since that declaration, the team, later rebranded Aston Martin, have stumbled. The arrival of Vettel was meant to signal the dawn of a new era but while there were glimpses of hope, that hope has been extinguished in 2022.

The Racing Point team became known for being serial overachievers but given the backing behind Aston Martin the title of serial underachievers can just as easily be applied to the current iteration of the Stroll project.

To the team’s credit, whilst performances on the track have not been up to standard, they have been developing off the track with the goal of making them one of the sport’s elite. Work is ongoing at their Silverstone base on a three-building campus estimated to cost between £150 million and £200 million that will give the team its own wind-tunnel and factory.

Construction is hoped to end next year with the building set to be operational by mid to late 2023 but it is not known what state the team will be in come the time to cut the ribbon.

Alonso’s arrival bears similarities with Vettel’s before him in the hope that a multiple time World Champion will elevate the team and Krack has already spoken of his anticipation of Alonso’s high demands when it comes to the team.

The race win has never looked further away but for Stroll and Krack, they hope this season is an irregularity and not the start of a longer trend.