13/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Aston Martin boss, Mike Krack claims that the British Grand Prix weekend was essentially all about "damage limitation".
Though the home team lost ground to Mercedes, a disastrous weekend for Ferrari kept the Maranello outfit at bay.
Due to its performances in the opening phase of the season, Krack believes that fans are expecting similar results at every venue, whereas the Aston Martin, like several of its rivals, appears to enjoy track specific performance.
"Damage limitation," admits Krack of the Silverstone weekend. "We did not have the performance that we wanted to have come Saturday, Sunday, so to go away with scoring more points than Ferrari, I think you can call it damage limitation.
"I always said you cannot have all the time podiums," he continues. "So we had six podiums in ten races, I think I always said that there will be also moments where it will be a bit more difficult. And we had now a race where, clearly on Saturday we didn't have the pace.
"Going into the race, I said we need to rely on our strengths, which I think pit stops, restarts, execution, strategy, and it played out quite well. I think this allowed us to come home still with these points."
Of course, Silverstone saw McLaren appear to enter the fight, the Woking team amassing 30 points as it almost claimed two spots on the podium.
Asked if McLaren joining the fight was a concern, Krack said: "Concern is the wrong word. I think it confirms what I have always been saying, we need to be careful defining too quickly a pecking order. You will remember me saying this. So we have a swing up and down.
"We have seen in Austria, for example, Mercedes were quite down, in Barcelona, they were very strong. We were very strong in Canada, it's not long ago, where we were fighting for the podium.
"So that is why I always say that we need to wait two, three or four tracks to realise or to be really sure about where the pecking order is. And I think we should maintain that."
Before the summer break there is the Hungaroring followed by Spa, two circuits that couldn't be more different.
"I think before the shutdown, we can say where we can have a better representation where we are," he says, "and this I think will allow us also to define from the race expectation where we have to go.
"I think we also need to consider we have a lot of races coming that are very different characteristic to the previous ones. The calendar is such that you have the less downforce races in the beginning, depending on how you classify them, and there are more races to come where maybe we can be better. These are all things that we have to see based on the analysis of the next three, I think."
Like several of its rivals, Aston Martin is witnessing a difference between its single-lap qualifying pace and its race pace.
"Qualifying is key," he admits. "Especially in circuits where you struggle more to pass like the one that will come, although it is now much easier than it used to be. But I think qualifying performance is key to finish at the front in F1 wherever you go.
"The statistics do not lie. It's a general improvement that we need to bring to the car. But it starts with analysing your weaknesses from the current events."
The German admits that such was the level of performance at the start of the season, it was widely expected that this would continue. As a result, while McLaren's Silverstone revival resulted in the reaction that it did, the seeming decline of Aston Martin has led to the opposite reaction, the the team is losing its way.
"The level of expectation has risen from six podiums," says Krack. "We sit here now with six podiums in ten races. It's normal, that the expectations are high, and we will continue to try and fulfil the expectations.
"It's a compliment that we have these expectations," he adds, "it shows that we have done the job. Even if it was six podiums in 22, I think it will be very respectable season compared to where we come from, and what our targets for the season were. But we will not give up now and let it go."