Tag: Mike Krack

Aston Martin went from being Red Bull’s closest Formula 1 challenger to finishing fifth in the 2023 constructors’ championship but the season should not be considered a disappointment, according to team principal Mike Krack.

Bahrain saw Fernando Alonso pick up a podium behind the Red Bull pair, kicking off a run of six podiums in the first eight races. On three occasions across the season Alonso finished second to Max Verstappen, but the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren moved clear of Aston Martin, something Krack says was out of his team’s hands.

“No, there is no disappointment of that because you need to be realistic about where you are,” Krack said. “We started the year in a very good position but we also need to analyze why have we been in that position.

“If you really analyze that and be realistic about where you are, then it cannot be a disappointment, because we were surprised — and I think everybody was surprised — that some teams were not coming out of the starting blocks as we had expected. Then, by developing, they came back to their more natural position.

“That is something we cannot influence with the firepower we have, so from that point of view I think it would be wrong to say this [2023] car is a disappointment. It is something that we know we need to work on of the future if we want to become a stronger team, but I think it would not be correct to put this as a disappointment.”

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Aston Martin moved into a new factory during the course of the 2023 season and Krack says it means there is no area that the team is now obviously needing to address outside of building a quicker car.

“If you want to make progress over the grid, you have to look mainly at the fact that these days everybody has safe cars, reliable cars and is very strong in operations,” he said. “The differentiator is the performance, and you have to focus on the areas that make the performance; this is an area where no team is stopping. You have to really develop in these departments and make them better, make them stronger and make them more efficient.”

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack says the team should not be solely judged on recent races but a wider sample set of venues and its progress compared to 2022.

Fernando Alonso finished seventh at the British Grand Prix, just holding off Williams’ Alex Albon as he finished comfortably adrift of both McLaren and both Mercedes drivers. With Silverstone marking the first time Aston had gone two consecutive races without scoring a podium, Krack says it’s too short-sighted to only view the last two rounds as the barometer of how competitive the team is.

“We need to be careful trying to define a pecking order too quickly,” Krack said. “You will remember me saying this: we have swings up and down. We have seen in Austria, for example, the Mercedes were quite down; in Barcelona they were very strong. We were very strong in Canada — that’s not long ago — where we were fighting for the podium.

“So that’s why I always say we need to wait over two, three or four tracks to be really sure about where the pecking order is, and I think we can maintain that.”

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Aston Martin currently sits third in the constructors’ championship with 181 points, and Krack says even if it slips away from being able to fight for podiums on a regular basis, the improvement compared to last season — when the team scored a total of 55 points and a best finish of sixth place — has been substantial.

“I think the season is already a very respectable one if you see where we came from. We have six podiums in 10 races — even if it were six podiums in 22, I think it would be a very respectable season compared to where we’ve come from, what our targets over the season were. But we will not give up now and let it go.

“We need to not get deviated too much by single events. We need to wait two, three or four races to see where we are — like a rolling average in engineering terms. I think then before the [summer] shutdown we can have a better representation of where we are and this will allow us to define from the race expectation where we have to go.

“I think we have to consider that there are a lot of races coming up over very different characteristics to the previous ones. The calendar is such that you have lower-downforce races in the beginning — depending on how you classify them — and there are more races to come where maybe we can be better. These are all things that we have to see based on the analysis of the next three, I think.”

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack says it’s important that the team does not take its newfound status as a regular podium finisher for granted after Fernando Alonso earned his fourth in five races at the Miami Grand Prix last weekend.

Aston Martin’s rise has been one of the big stories of the Formula 1 season so far. The team finished seventh in the constructors’ standings last year with a pair of sixth places as its best race results, but this year’s AMR23 came charging out of the blocks to establish the team as best of the rest behind the dominant Red Bull Racing.

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Alonso started from second and finished third behind the two Red Bull drivers in Miami, comfortably easing away from any threat from the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari behind. The Spaniard is currently third in the drivers’ championship — the only race to date where he didn’t score a podium was Baku, where he still finished fourth — but Krack says the latest trophy still feels special.

“Feet on the ground,” Krack said. “You should never take a podium in F1 as a normal, or as a given, because it’s a lot of hard work involved to be on the podium, and you have very, very strong competitors in F1, very professional. If you are not 100% in all areas at all times, then there is no podium.”

Aston Martin’s rise comes at a time when the form of Mercedes, Ferrari and Alpine has fluctuated. Krack says the early success is a sign of the team’s development during the winter, but points out it has also made errors.

“It shows we are a strong team,” he said. “It shows that we are not taking gambles, we are not playing the lottery, but we are making choices based on data, based on the results we have. That is also one of the reasons why we can be as consistent. But we made quite a big mistake (not sending Lance Stroll out for a second Q1 run in qualifying), so we have been fault-free until then…”

According to Krack, Aston Martin’s early-season consistency leaves him with fewer question marks over the car’s potential at certain tracks.

“I think Monza and Las Vegas. Spa, maybe,” he said. “But there is still time until then, so we can do some development. As a team it’s good; you need to learn how your car behaves, how your car is compared to the competition. We hear left and right that Mercedes will have big steps coming, so we must not let up, but we must not focus on a single race, like Monza or whatever. We’ll take them as they come and try to do the best.”

Aston Martin’s progress this season leaves the team “much more exposed” when it comes to having to deliver on its potential, according to team principal Mike Krack.

Red Bull has a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field this season but Aston Martin has gone from seventh in the constructors’ championship last year to sit second after three podiums in the opening three races. Krack says much of his job is unchanged from the past but admits there is added pressure with racing the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari regularly.

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“It’s surprising, it’s not that different, because we have a very dedicated team that is always trying to achieve the maximum wherever they are,” Krack said. “So the approach is not that much different, but what you have is you are obviously much more exposed.

“I think if we make mistakes on pit stops or strategy, it is maybe spotted more than it potentially has been before. But apart from that the job itself is not very different. It’s easier to speak about three podiums than what we spoke about twelve months ago, that was very difficult!”

Krack likens the battle for second place as similar to the midfield in the past given how closely-matched the teams are, pointing out that external factors can impact which team is the nearest challenger to Red Bull at each race.

“I think everything is very, very close … You have this midfield where everything is basically one, two or three tenths (of a second) and I think it’s the same here with Ferrari and Mercedes. Depending on the circuit, depending on its layout, one has the upper hand maybe over someone else. What is clear is Red Bull is fastest.

“Three circuits with three different characteristics, and to be competitive in all three we are obviously confident that we can be on other circuits as well. But the range of circuits is very different, now you have Baku with a huge straight and then you have Monaco with no straight, so all these kinds of things will always shift the field a bit left and right.

“That’s why I am always saying we must be careful not to draw too many conclusions from one race event. And then also where you saw the strategy (in Australia) and how it played out and everyone has to manage you don’t get a representation of the pace. That’s why I’m always careful not to be too firm in the conclusions.”

Team principal Mike Krack says there is “huge momentum and huge energy” within Aston Martin as a result of its strong start to the 2023 season.

Aston Martin finished seventh in the constructors’ championship last year but is currently second, level on points with Mercedes but ranked ahead thanks to two consecutive podiums for Fernando Alonso. With Alonso leading the opening two laps of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Krack says such moments provide a boost that is clearly tangible within the team.

“It’s incredible — you cannot believe it if you do not live it,” Krack said. “There is a huge momentum and huge energy in the team — I am looking forward to going to work because everyone is flat out, flat out, flat out. You have to push people out to go home to see their families at times.

“All weekend (during Saudi Arabia) we had mission control, people in the office, that were just looking at stuff and analyzing, trying to improve. So it’s really a pleasure to work in the team.”

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Although Alonso has been third behind a Red Bull one-two in each of the opening two races, Krack says he’s not convinced that Aston Martin is second-quickest overall, even if he was pleasantly surprised by the pace shown in Saudi Arabia.

“One is the race result, the other one is where are you? We always said we want to wait for the first three races to see where we are. I think we need to be careful saying second — I think we can safely say we have made a substantial improvement.

“We were cautious in expectation because you look what was different to Bahrain and we felt we were maybe a bit less competitive in high-speed section in Bahrain than in other sections, but obviously there was a lot of saving going in in Bahrain as well, so you do not really know, and it was this not knowing that’s what made us cautious about what we were going to see.

“And secondly is the straight-line performance, so basically the two things that we thought we were not the greatest in Bahrain were dominant (in Jeddah) and that made us be cautious.”

That caution continues when Krack looks ahead to the rest of the season, as he feels Mercedes and Ferrari are so close in terms of outright race pace.

“We have two data samples from two completely different tracks and in these two tracks we were competitive but there are others. It is a relative game — it could also be that one of the competitors had issues that we are not aware of and that would remix the order.”

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.”