F1 News
Aston Martin misses out on podium again: 'Difficult moments would come'
Aston Martin - and then only Fernando Alonso - had long been a regular visitor to the podium in '23. But in the last four Grands Prix, the Spaniard could 'only' pick up a trophy once. As in Austria, Aston Martin did not have the speed at its home race to play a serious role of significance.
The overall feeling after Silverstone is therefore not hugely positive. "Damage limitation, I would say," team boss Mike Krack told GPblog and other media about the result of the British Grand Prix. "We did not have the performance that we wanted to have. Come Saturday, Sunday, and to go away with scoring more points than Ferrari, I think you can call it damage limitation."
Aston Martin realises; Not always a party
Krack was always cautious during his team's fine period. The Luxembourger warned from the outset that success could not be taken for granted. He was proved right in recent races. "Yes, absolutely. I always said you cannot have all the time podiums. So we had six podiums in ten races. I always said 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 that we wanted to have."
"I think going into the race, we said we need to rely on our strengths today, which is pit stops, race starts, execution, strategy, and it played out quite well. All this we could rely on today, and I think this allowed us to come home still with decent points," Krack said.
McLaren has overtaken Aston Martin?
Aston Martin's spot on the podium was taken by McLaren at Silverstone. "Yes," the team boss responded when asked if McLaren had surprised him? "But to be honest, I did not really concentrate on McLaren. I concentrated on ourselves. It cannot go unnoticed, but you have a race where you try to bring both cars into the top, and we were not fighting for podium anyway, so you are concentrating more on yourself in such situations."
It is easy to imagine that Krack and Aston Martin have some concerns about their own performance of late on the one hand and McLaren's speed on the other. "Yes, I mean the concern is the wrong word. I think it confirms what I have always been saying. We need to be careful defining too quickly a packing order. You will remember me saying this. We have a swing up and down."
Krack sums up, "In Austria for example, the Mercedes were quite down. In Barcelona they were very strong. We were very strong in Canada, it was not long ago when we were fighting for the podium. That is why I always say we need to wait two, three, four tracks to realise or to be really sure about where the packing order is. I think we should maintain that."