Mike Krack says Aston Martin won’t have its windtunnel ready for 2025 F1 car, as he admits about rivals out-developing them.
The highly talked about windtunnel at the revamped Aston Martin base won’t be serving to prepare the 2025 F1 car as team boss Krack has affirmed. Even though they are relentless in getting it ready, there won’t be time enough for a 2025 start at least.
It is unclear if they can get the 2026 car running but the expectation will be that they can do it. “The wind tunnel will not be that quick. So next year’s car will not be in the new wind tunnel,” said Krack. “I think we will eventually have everything we need, but we don’t have it yet. On the other hand, I think this does not count as an excuse.
“You have to do the best with the tools you have, and we feel that we have not done that.” Despite the new hiring made by Aston Martin in recent times, the F1 team has lagged a bit after a dream start to its 2023 campaign where it fought at the front of the field.
It started to drop out midway into the season and 2024 hasn’t been strong enough either. The development direction has gone wrong as Lance Stroll noted, while Fernando Alonso wants proven results rather than fast-track updates in quantity and not quality.
Krack, meanwhile, agrees with his drivers about the updates not working. It is now the task to rectify those mistakes and bring an update which will deliver on track performance. “Both drivers clearly comment how difficult this car is to drive,” he said. “It’s very unpredictable.
“Sometimes it has glimpses where you think, how could we have made this corner so fast? But then unfortunately the other 90% of the circuit. how can we go so slow? So it’s something that, you know, if the car surprises you, you take margin. You do not go to the maximum and there is no confidence.
“And I think confidence is one of the most important bits. So that’s something that it is quite easily explainable, that you amplify the problems that you’re having. Now, what are you going to do about it? It’s something that we have been really thoroughly looking at since we had the last two upgrades that was not delivering really what we expected it to do.
“Now we have six weeks with five races. We know what the lead times are for parts. Like Peter said, you push to bring parts early but you have to do it also diligently. They have to have the right quality because otherwise you fall back even further. So you need to really invest this time to have high quality parts and bring them as quickly as you can.
“So you need to know what you’re doing, but then you also need to produce them in the correct specification and quality and quantity,” summed up Krack, who also admits that their F1 rivals have managed to out-develop Aston Martin and are surging ahead.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “I would not say stalled, but I think clearly others do a better job than we do, and that is something that we have to seriously put under scrutiny. There is never one thing in Formula 1, obviously. You always have several factors contributing, but I think we have to have a close look at aerodynamics, because this is performance differentiator number one in F1 and also how we do how we do these things.
“So that’s something that is clearly being analysed thoroughly not only now over the last month and I think we have understood some of our issues and trying to solve them as quick as possible. But we still have a long way ahead.”
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