Over the course of the winter break, no team made as much progress in F1 as Aston Martin did. After signing Fernando Alonso to their team, the Silverstone-based outfit took the sport by storm by finishing on the podium in three of the opening four races. Overall, Aston Martin have finished on the podium six times, all of them led by Alonso. Now, team principal Mike Krack looks back on the last two years and reveals the key ingredient behind their success.
The Aston Martin name returned to F1 in 2021, and owner Lawrence Stroll made it clear that he wanted them to compete for the world championship. The first two years were not particularly good for the British outfit, as they often struggled to get into the points.
In 2022, Krack joined the team and led a revolutionary process in making them contenders at the front again. However, his first season in charge saw them struggle immensely. But instead of losing their heads and blaming each other, they adopted a different approach to ensure their success in 2023.
Aston Martin knew they couldn’t perform miracles in one season
In an interview with Motorsport, Krack explains how no one at Aston Martin pointed fingers at each other, despite them being in a difficult situation. He looks back on how they went multiple races without scoring a single point. Now on the other hand, if they don’t finish on the podium, it is seen as a failure.
“We were not allowed to point the finger,” he said. “In the end, we succeeded and we learned from that. We knew we couldn’t perform miracles in one season. We wanted to improve our car step by step. And in Abu Dhabi, during the last race, we noticed that we had made great leaps.”
Double points for the team in a tough weekend. I also made a mistake in the second pit stop that caused a slow stop, sorry 😵💫! We lacked pace to fight higher up, but heads down and we know what we have to do! This team never gives up💪! Can’t wait to fight again in Spa next… pic.twitter.com/TUlFoVldy8
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) July 23, 2023
Admittedly, Alonso and Aston Martin had a brilliant start to the 2023 season. The Spaniard is P3 in the world championship standings, and will be hoping to get out of their minor slump when the season resumes in two-weeks time.
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin hoping to get out of slump
Aston Martin introduced upgrades to their car at the 2023 Canadian GP. In Montreal, those upgrades seemed to work well with Alonso finishing P2 in the race. However, in the following few races, some cracks began to appear.
According to Mike Krack, the results were deceiving because the upgrades were suited to the Circuit-Gilles Villeneuve. Alonso finished P5, P7 and P9 in the races to follow. However, they showed some signs of improvement right before the summer-break started by finishing 5th in Belgium.
Now, Alonso and Aston Martin will be hoping to put this minor slump behind him and get back to competing for the podium places when the season resumes.
