Aston Martin team principal reflects on 'the harsh reality of Formula 1' as the team falls back once again in the development race

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack reckons that falling behind in the developmental race in Formula 1 is one of the harsh truths of the sport. Speaking to the Motorsport Network, the Luxembourger admitted that the Silverstone-based team had failed to find performance gains in the first half of the season.

The Aston Martin team finished fifth in the championship in 2023, but Fernando Alonso secured eight podiums. In 2024, they are fifth, but a podium has been out of reach, with their highest-point finish position being sixth place.

Krack believes the team experienced a setback after the Imola GP. While they initially targeted fifth fastest, they admit to struggling to make performance gains and that their car development took an incorrect path as the season progressed.

Asked if any particular upgrade had downgraded their performance, the Aston Martin team principal said:

“No, when we look at our relative performance, we can identify Imola as one of the points because everybody brings upgrades to Imola. If yours is not delivering what you expect and the others do – which I do not know, but I have to assume – you take a step backwards. That's the harsh reality of Formula 1.”

Assessing the first half of the season for Aston Martin, Krack said:

“I think when you look back, we started the season actually where we were thinking we were going to start the season.We had an expectation that we were around the fifth fastest team in race pace and I think we confirmed that in the early races [with] glimpses of maybe slightly better performance in qualifying. Then, when we started to develop the car it just went in the wrong direction. We did not manage to add performance with the update and the competition did. If you do not move forward, you get passed, and I think that's a fair summary of the first half.”

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Mike Krack reckons that Aston Martin have changed their approach to recover from the mid-season slump

Krack emphasized the importance of analyzing their performance decline and the reasons behind the underperformance of car upgrades. The Aston Martin boss revealed a change in approach for the AMR25 to address the mid-season slump, admitting a need for a fresh start to restore confidence in their development direction.

When asked how they plan to recover from their mid-season performance woes, the 52-year-old said:

“Well, the most important [thing] is to understand why it didn't deliver what it was [supposed to be] delivering. The last two months, I have to say, has been really tough in terms of analysis because it is not like an instant discovery, ‘what is the problem?’ - it takes you a little bit of time to analyse this. Then you have to take action to change it, then you have to make the parts. At the same time, there are five, six, seven, eight races in that time where you just accumulate negative results.

“It leads to a very high expectation of what you are going to do and what it is going to fix. So, what we have decided is to take a little bit of a different approach because it has not delivered what we expected it to deliver. But it is more like a little restart and building on that restart. Again, it's about managing expectations. A turnaround in such an intense season is not something that you do in five minutes. And that is something that we all need to be aware of and be confident that the change of approach that we have taken now will bring the performance that we want to bring,” he added.

Aston Martin currently holds a comfortable fifth position in the championship with a total of 73 points. However, they are ranked fourth among the Mercedes-powered teams on the grid. While Red Bull's junior team, RB Honda, occupies sixth place with 34 points, Mercedes stands in fourth with a total of 266 points.

Given the 193-point gap between Aston Martin and the team ahead, they will need a dramatic upturn in performance akin to McLaren's second half of 2023. In the drivers' championship, Fernando Alonso is ninth and Lance Stroll is tenth. This is a significant drop from the Spanish champion's fourth-place finish last season, secured after multiple podiums.