Aston Martin’s recent form has been “weighing” on the team as it slips from contention for second place in the constructors’ championship, team principal Mike Krack admits.
A stunning start to 2023 led to Aston emerging as Red Bull’s nearest challenger during the opening races, but it has slowly been overhauled by the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and more recently McLaren. Now watching McLaren closing in on fourth in the constructors’ standings, Krack says that while the overall progress made in the past year shouldn’t be overlooked, picking up strong points again is the only way to maintain a positive view of the season.
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“I think you need to keep the big picture in mind, but you have to keep the motivation up and the morale up,” Krack told SiriusXM. “And for this I think that it’s also very important that we turn this trend around.
“We have not accumulated high finishing positions in the last races and this is weighing, obviously. I would be lying if I said we take this easily, because the expectations are massively different due to the results earlier on in the year. This is one of our jobs, to keep the focus, to keep the concentration and not get frustrated by that.”
Krack believes the lack of big results since Fernando Alonso’s second place in Zandvoort is due to a combination of other teams improvements and Aston Martin failing to match that progress.
“Considering that it is a relative game all the time, I think it’s both,” he said. “Others have improved their package more than us, and we would have liked to have improved ours more. So I think it’s both, but this also is what makes it nice for you guys (watching) – it makes it difficult for us but we have to accept that and try to make the second part better.
“Yeah (there will be upgrades), I think it’s quite important to try to learn as much as possible to make this car faster and also in light of next year’s car.”
While the pressure is being applied by McLaren’s turnaround in performance that yielded a double-podium finish in Japan, Krack says it’s important Aston Martin doesn’t get distracted by other teams’ results.
“We have no influence over what they do,” he said. “So the only thing we can do is maximize everything, maximize our opportunities, be reliable and be 100% in any kind of operations, any kind of sessions, so that we get the maximum out of what we have.”