Aston Martin F1 finished fifth in the 2024 world championship and scored points in the last two races. But its director, Mike Krack, does not want to see this as a sign of sufficient progress, and he expects more from his team this year.
“We must not be blind to the final result. Fifth, from the outside, it's solid. It's not extraordinary, but it's not terrible either. It's not the worst season of all time, but compared to our ambitions, we have not done what we wanted” Krack said.
“That shouldn't blind us… in fact, we haven't been the fifth strongest team for a while now. And there's always a risk. You look at the paper, you say you finish fifth, you scored in the last two races, it’s all good, it’s something you can’t get away from.”
“When you start analyzing the seasons, you see that we didn't achieve all the goals that we wanted. We wanted to get closer to our competitors, and if we had done that, if we're honest, we wouldn't have probably not finished far from fifth place, but with a completely different perception of the season.”
Krack admits that Aston Martin's development protocol hasn't been good enough since 2023: “It's something we discuss a lot internally. The way we've gone about it, we've done things. I think there's nothing to hide.”
“For 18 months we haven't really been able to deliver comprehensive developments that have given us a substantial performance improvement, and that's why we have to question the way we're doing it. We talk very intensely.”
“This is a period of reflection. It may already be an 18-month period, because we had similar problems from mid-2023. We cannot consider that this is an isolated situation.”
“We have seen many times that we have not been good enough in developing performances. We have to look at the situation closely. This is what we are doing, we are looking closely because the team has developed quickly. You have a historical structure. How are we structured?
“Who talks to whom when we're developing performance, and we have to realize that the way we're doing it doesn't lead to success. So we have to question all of that. That's what we're doing right now and we We need to ask ourselves if there are any changes that need to be made or if we need to adapt certain processes.”
The Luxembourger brings an ultimatum to his team and does not want to sacrifice the coming season to only think about 2026: “We cannot afford to let 2025 slip away. But I think we have just had two years in a row that have not lived up to our expectations.”
“So I think when it comes to 2025, we need to be humble. We need to take a humble approach and try to solve the problems that we have had this year one by one.”
“Indeed, cars today are quite mature. There are still big differences between cars. But everyone has reached a level of maturity that we don't have. And I think that's something that we really need to catch up.”
