Aston Martin is marking time in Formula 1 – Mike Krack, until a few days ago still team principal, is therefore self-critical and wants to reverse the trend
The decisive step forward is missing: Aston Martin lost touch with the top teams Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari in the 2024 Formula 1 season and only made it into the top 5 once. In 2023, the team with Fernando Alonso was still regularly on the podium at the beginning. The car was not further developed and since standing still is known to be a step backwards, the team is marking time. Ex-team principal Mike Krack is accordingly self-critical.
The 2023 season got off to a flying start, with Alonso challenging Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll also posting good results. But then nothing came of it: the AMR23 didn’t get any better, while the competition significantly improved their cars. The AMR24 didn’t improve either, which is why Aston Martin is now nowhere.
Aston Martin even has to be careful not to be overtaken by other midfield teams like Haas, Alpine or Racing Bulls. The British team are no longer considered a challenger to the top teams, which is why something urgently needs to change. The team has therefore made some personnel adjustments: Andy Cowell is replacing Krack as team manager for the new season, and engineering legend Adrian Newey will join the team in March.
Fifth only with luck and thanks to a solid base
“We have not met expectations and cannot be satisfied with the way the season has gone,” Krack told Autosport, even before the recent restructuring at Aston Martin.
“We are back in fifth place, but if the season had only started in the summer, we wouldn’t have made it. We all now have to reflect on the season and critically examine what happened. We didn’t manage to develop the car, it was the same last year.”
The only difference, according to Krack, is that the base was better in 2023 and that’s why the team was able to perform well at the beginning of the season. After that, however, Aston Martin only had blanks because the upgrades didn’t bear fruit at all. “We have now failed to improve the base over the course of the year for two years and that’s why we fell behind every time,” Krack sums up.
Alonso and Stroll finished in the top 10 together 13 times in the first half of the 2024 season, but in the second half, they only scored seven points in 12 races. “We always try to be honest with ourselves to find out what went wrong,” says Krack, who saw no improvement in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. ‘If that happens twice, it’s worrying because it’s no longer an isolated incident.’
Krack does not accept excuses: “If the others are using the same wind tunnel but our data does not correlate, why does it work for the others and how do they manage to improve? So we have to be critical of ourselves. We can’t just say, ‘That’s the way it is’. The level is too high not to question your own processes.”
Krack wants all processes at Aston Martin to be scrutinized. Have the right improvements been made? Were they made at the right time? Have the right decisions been made? “These are the questions we are asking ourselves,” he says. “Now we just have to draw the right conclusions from them.”
