Formula 1
Aston Martin starting "too far to the back" to score strong F1 results
Aston Martin Formula 1 team principal Mike Krack admits that the Silverstone outfit has to address its qualifying issues to be able to score more the occasional point.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Aug 10, 2022, 8:33 AM
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Heading into the summer break the team lies ninth in the world championship, ahead of only Williams.
Apart from a high of a sixth place for Sebastian Vettel in Azerbaijan, the team has logged an eighth, a ninth and six 10th places in the first part of the season.
Krack says the main issue is simply a lack of qualifying pace that has obliged Vettel and his teammate Lance Stroll to come through the field.
"We seem to accumulate quite a good amount of positive races," Krack said. "But we need to also start from the front. Because I think this has now been a couple of times already that we had very strong pace in the race, and made good calls.
"But we start too far to the back. That's a problem. And you see that you score one, two, one, one, one point, and this is not enough to close the gap to constructors in front."
Krack says that the team has no explanation for its lack of Saturday pace compared to its strong race form.
"Yeah, we're trying to understand it, honestly. Because if we knew why, then we will also try to change it. So it's something that we really need to understand, what makes this.
"And the best approach to understand this is you always have to refer to lap time difference to the cars, and not ranking. Because with the tight midfield, it's very, very often that if you get something wrong, you lose three or four positions.
Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR22
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
"So if someone gets it really right, he gains three grid positions, or maybe even five or six, because the midfield is so tight, so it is very important to stay really objective, and really monitor the lap time difference that you're having.
"And then see where we have to where we have to improve. But it is clear that Saturdays we struggle more than Sundays."
Krack says that the steering feedback problem cited by the drivers earlier in the year, and which contributed to accidents in Melbourne, has now been resolved.
"I think the feedback issues that we were referring to at that time, we are fine. We have made quite good progress over all these races.
"And I think our main weakness you see when you look at race tracks like Silverstone, Austria. When you have a lot of high-speed corners, we struggle.
"So that point of view we have to work on the aerodynamics, but I think we can still improve this car."
Asked by Motorsport.com to summarise his first months in charge, he said: "To be honest, there are mixed feelings. I'm very happy with the way the team is running. And the way I've been welcomed, the way things are evolving.
"But I'm very disappointed by our performance. And we would like to have progressed quicker than we do. And we are progressing. It's measurable, but the others are at the same rate, or some maybe even faster.
"So that is that is one of the things that we need to see for the future. How can we progress faster? Or start on a better basis straight away?"
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