Aston Martin must criticize itself about its lack of progress in F1

The Silverstone-based team started the 2023 campaign in impressive fashion as Fernando Alonso established himself as Max Verstappen's closest rival, while Lance Stroll put in strong performances while still recovering from a pre-season injury.

But Aston Martin failed to consolidate its promotion as it struggled to keep up with the pace of development of its AMR23 compared to rival teams and eventually finished fifth in the constructors' standings.

It was a similar story last year, but the team started fifth fastest on the grid and, although it consolidated its position in the table, the AMR24 often found itself pushed down as the year progressed, with Haas, Alpine and RB ahead at times, once they had developed their cars.

Summing up the season in statements to Motorsport.comKrack said: “We have performed below expectations, so we can't be happy with how the season has gone.”

“We stayed in fifth place, but if the championship had started in the summer (of Europe), we would not have finished in fifth. So I think, in general, we have to reflect on the season and look at it very critically.”

“The steps we have taken in the car have not managed to improve it and there is a bit of parallelism with last year (for 2023) in all that. The difference is that last year we started better and this year we have not started at the same level” .

“So I think we have a lot to look at in terms of how we do these things because now, two years in a row, we haven't really managed to improve from where we started but rather go backwards.”

When asked how he measured Aston Martin against its rivals, Krack insisted the team had to look inward, adding: “The fact is, regardless of everyone else, you have a base car at the beginning of the year and you have a car at the end of the year. end of the year, and you have some intermediate steps.

“I think the development curve of the others has been much better than ours. Regardless of where we finished, the finishing positions of the first eight or nine races of 2023 have added a lot of pressure to the whole system. But the result, at the end At the end of the day, whether you start the year in fifth place – or fourth, depending on how you look at this year – or whether you start in second or third place, it doesn't change the picture.

“The image on the outside has changed. Like: 'they have been so good and now they are so bad'. But, when I take away the competitiveness, or the hierarchical order, when you take that away, you have a car with which you start the season [con] and you have the car with which you finish the season [con] – how much have we improved it? “I think others here have done a better job two years in a row and that's something we really have to look at.”

Alonso and Stroll achieved 13 top-10s between them in the first half of last season, but only managed seven points in the second half, all of them achieved by the two-time champion, as the team reneged on some improvements late in the season. .

Asked if the car had improved over the course of the season, Krack replied: “We always try to be honest with ourselves and try to calibrate it.”

“It's a thing where you often say, 'We've made it better in this area, but we've probably made it worse in this area.' So I don't think you can always say, 'We've gotten better in every way.' Maybe when you start So [muy lejos de la cabeza].

“But seriously, I think it's concerning. Because, if you've done it twice in a row, it's not something isolated. It's something you have to look at in your system.

“The progress we wanted to make: you set goals and you don't achieve them. You don't get the desired performance. It can be attributed to all kinds of factors. You can say that there is not the desired correlation. But there are others who are using the same tunnel, for example. If you start thinking about aerodynamics and say that it doesn't apply, why do others do it and progress?

“So you have to be critical of yourself. You can't just say 'it's this, it's this'. The level is too high not to thoroughly analyze what you're doing.

“Then you have to be self-critical. Did we make the right decisions at the right time? Should we have waited with one or two steps until they were really well proven? Or have we rushed because the pressure is great? So these are all questions that “We have to do ourselves – critically – and draw the appropriate conclusions”.

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