Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack takes stock of the 2024 season. A campaign with which he cannot be satisfied, a statement to the contrary would have been astonishing.
Aston Martin went the opposite way to McLaren, where Fernando Alonso had 6 consecutive podiums at the start of 2023 and where McLaren was hanging around at the bottom of the standings, towards a 2024 season completely shaken up in the hierarchy for these two Mercedes client teams. McLaren won the constructors’ title, a first for 26 years, while Aston Martin certainly remained the 5th force in the field but with a deficit of 186 points compared to the previous year.
Mike Krack thinks Aston Martin has learned its lesson
Asked if Aston Martin has understood what went wrong with its AMR24 single-seater, and what it needs to do differently for 2025, Krack replied: “Yes, I think the whole season is difficult. We had higher expectations. I think we started where we thought we would be as a team. We wanted to close the gap to the teams that we preceded.”
It’s quite the opposite that happened, we were caught up by the middle of the pack with whom we had a fairly significant gap at the start of the year, which is why we cannot be satisfied with the way how things happened.
But we’ve also learned lessons about what we need to do differently in the future, and we’re working full throttle on next year’s car to make it a better candidate than the one we have today.
Krack also discussed last month’s announcement of Dan Fallows’ departure as technical director of Aston Martin, which coincided with the failure of the AMR24. The announcement comes as F1 design guru Adrian Newey and former Ferrari technical chief Enrico Cardile are set to join the team alongside the recent appointment of Andy Cowell, who took over from Martin Whitmarsh at the helm. CEO position.
As in many professional sports, the only thing that matters is the result, the performance on the track, on the field or elsewhere. If performance is not there, the structures make changes, and that’s what happened here, it’s as simple as that.
Asked if there were any further changes ahead of Newey’s arrival, Krack added: “Yes, I think we had the arrival of Andy, Enrico and Adrian, and as a team we have to work out the structure, especially the technical structure, that allows each of them to them to give the best of themselves.”
