With two good results, Aston Martin has moved past Haas and AlphaTauri in the WRC: Is the racing team now going after Alfa Romeo as well?
Aston Martin has put itself in a good position to take seventh place in the Constructors’ World Championship over the past two races. For a long time, Sebastian Vettel’s racing team was only in penultimate place, but thanks to 20 points in Singapore and Suzuka, they have managed to move past Haas and AlphaTauri.
Even Alfa Romeo’s sixth place is absolutely within reach: Only seven points are missing until then, and the racing team has only been able to collect a single point in the past nine races.
According to team boss Mike Krack, the recent results have been a great motivational boost for the team, but they must not let up now: “Confidence is not everything,” he says. “You also need a fast car. We don’t achieve much with confidence alone.”
“We know where we are with our car. We have made some progress over the year, but in a normal race we would certainly struggle to finish sixth,” Krack said. “We have to stay realistic. There are four races left and if we can keep scoring then there’s a chance we can make up another position. “
“But,” he continues to warn. It also works the other way round: “If one of our rival teams scores massively, then we could also lose another position.” Currently, Aston Martin are both eleven points ahead of Haas and AlphaTauri, who are tied for eighth place.
“So it’s four races, that’s still long, and we need to keep performing well,” said the team boss, who is however encouraged by recent results, “In the last twelve races we have scored ten times. I think you can see that we are on a good path. “
Change to intermediates the key
In Suzuka, the team benefited from a bold strategy decision when they put Sebastian Vettel on intermediates first after the restart. Only Williams did this with Nicholas Latifi, who was rewarded with his first points of the season.
“We had talked about it. We had time to discuss it, how do we go about it?” said Krack of the strategy. “And then we decided it together. In the end, the rider had to make the final decision, because we don’t see all the track conditions. He had the final say and we were ready.”
“And I think that was key, but also that we were able to overtake Latifi at the pit stop, because otherwise we wouldn’t have finished ahead of Fernando [Alonso]. Basically, those two decisions were crucial,” Krack said.
Does Aston Martin love the season-ender?
For the team boss, Suzuka was Vettel’s best performance of the 2022 season, along with Monaco, Baku and Canada. “But this one stands out again because he gave it a little bit extra that maybe the car doesn’t have. “
Aston Martin will need that too if they are to catch Alfa Romeo, especially as the tracks still to come have little in common with the tracks where Aston Martin have been good. “The next races are all very similar in terms of characteristics,” says Krack.
“They are nothing like the tracks in Baku, Singapore and Monaco. So it will be more difficult for us than at the aforementioned races.” Still, he remains hopeful: “It could rain in Sao Paulo, and we also have a sprint in Sao Paulo. So there are still some possibilities. And there is no track that we think would be really bad for us. Let’s see. “
