Aston Martin has produced a car for the 2023 season that will be “much, much easier” to develop compared to its predecessor last year.
Lawrence Stroll’s team entered the new era of technical regulations with optimism but struggled in the early part of 2022 and took four rounds to score its first point. From there Aston Martin developed its car impressively and finished the season level on points with sixth-placed Alfa Romeo, before radically overhauling its concept over the winter and starting this year with a car team principal Mike Krack is excited about.
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“In a cost cap environment, you need to start with a good baseline because you cannot afford to spend what you have available on just on developing,” Krack said. “I think this is something that is also why we went aggressive in the targets that we had for that car.
“Obviously it’s not always easy to achieve, but our team has managed to achieve great things there, and it’s much, much easier to develop from this base than to develop from the base we had last year.”
With Aston Martin starting the year second to Red Bull in terms of pace in Bahrain, and with the defending champions facing a cost cap penalty designed to limit development, Krack says there’s no point worrying about the potential to close the gap but wants his team to focus on its own progress.
“I think last year, we managed to get better over the season, but we saw also how hard that is in terms of, because of the intensity that you have with racing and cost cap, you are really tight. I think we have our development plan, and this is independent of Red Bull.
“We have a plan in place, but the others have a plan in place as well. It could well be that if you develop at the same rate, you stay where you are. Let’s see where we get to.”
Krack also says rivals should not underestimate Aston Martin’s potential to maximize its opportunities, given the way the team was lauded for being so effective in previous guises.
“We must not forget, we speak here about Team Silverstone. Team Silverstone is a very experienced team with a lot of fantastic people that have done that already. And we saw it, I think we clearly saw it with the race strategy (in Bahrain).
“The team did not get carried away by stopping early, trying to undercut. But by sticking to its plan, this tire advantage that was built at the end of the day was I think instrumental to help to pass. I think we continue to try to do our best there.”