Mike Krack reckons Aston Martin can’t be blinded by the fact that they scored in the final two rounds of the 2024 season, as he knows work needs to be done.
Aston Martin managed to retain fifth in the F1 constructors’ championship by scoring heavy in the first part of the 2024 F1 season. They dipped in performance midway and managed to score at some rounds towards the end, which included the last two races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
That was a good result for the team to end the season, but team boss Krack doesn’t want the results to get into the head where they forget how the season actually was for them. “I think important for the hard work that was put in from many, many people as the triple-headers are really tough for these people over there,” he said to media.
“And the people also that, in Mission Control have to get up at 9 o’clock and this kind of thing. So I think that is a good reward. But it should not blind us, it should not deviate from the fact that, yes, we have scored, but we are not fifth anymore for a while already. And there is always a risk. You look at the paper, you say you are finishing fifth, you scored the last two races, everything is fine.
“It’s something you must not fall far off,” summed up Krack, who explained why Aston Martin didn’t go for that many updates in the latter part of the F1 season. Also, the timeframe is less as well to react to things. The team, though, switched from being quick in race to quick in qualifying, which didn’t help them eventually. The imbalance hurt them and made them just seventh or eighth best team.
“We had the Austin package and we had not planned anything further,” said Krack. “Because whether stuff works or not, in terms of cost cap and planning of your parts, that is it. And so you have no time to react anymore. It’s too short. And also financially, you have to make your choices. Regarding our car, I think when we look back last year, we were stronger in the race than in the qualifying.
“This year, we have stronger in the qualifying than in the race. The race gives the points, not the qualifying. So while there have been some extraordinary performances, sometimes the car has come alive. At low floor, going into the rhythm of tyres, Abu Dhabi was a good example, where we got much more performance out of it all of a sudden.
“But we must also not forget, the gaps are very, very small. So often, you find two tenths, three tenths, and you make a big jump. We also discussed, the race being at two in the afternoon in the heat, where we really struggled, things have looked very different, both in qualifying and in the race.” Summed up Krack.
Here’s Lance Stroll on not recalling 2024 as much
Here’s Fernando Alonso on Gabriel Bortoleto
Here’s Fernando Alonso on Andrea Stella, Zak Brown
Here’s Fernando Alonso on positive end
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact
