Aston Martin rejects Sainz theory after Hungarian Grand Prix

Carlos Sainz, in a rallying cry to his Williams team, claimed that Aston Martin now has the best chassis in the midfield following its Hungarian GP upgrades.

Aston Martin‘s chief trackside officer Mike Krack decisively dismissed Sainz’s claim. That is despite a Fernando Alonso data discovery which offered credit to what Sainz had said.

Mike Krack rejects Carlos Sainz verdict on Aston Martin

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Aston Martin introduced its major upgrade package for the AMR26 in Hungary, as advertised. It was a 16-part package.

It was a positive introduction. Aston Martin was able to leapfrog Cadillac and Williams, while mixing it up with Haas and Alpine at the Hungaroring.

Aston Martin’s gain was Williams’ pain.

“Aston went from having a worse downforce, worse chassis than us to having the best midfield downforce right now,” Williams driver Sainz claimed to PlanetF1.com in Hungary.

Sainz’s comments were put to Krack, who did not share that opinion.

“I don’t think so,” he replied to PlanetF1.com and others, dismissing Sainz’s claim.

It was an intriguing response, considering what Alonso had said after driving the B-spec AMR26 for the first time on Hungarian GP Friday.

“We need to study the data more and see overlays. But I don’t think there are any big surprises there, or any big deficit on the corners now to the top of the midfield, which is obviously the first of our ambitions, to be top of the midfield,” Alonso had said.

“I think on the corners we are matching that kind of pace. So we just need to keep up the work.”

Regardless of Aston Martin’s true standing in the pecking order, Krack declared that the key goal for Hungary was met.

“I think we came here and we said the main objective is to go back racing. I think we achieved that.

“The upgrade package works.

“Now we need to bring the next steps.”

Asked how much potential has been unlocked from the new AMR26 package at this stage, Krack continued: “That’s difficult to say. We’ll know in the next events if we find more performance or not.

“We lost a bit of time this weekend with Lance [Stroll] after the issue in FP1, so he didn’t drive in FP2. So for sure, we missed a bit of time to optimise everything.

“But, we take it from here and we see what we can unlock in the next races.

“We’re trying to have a good look at the data, and then we’ll see in Zandvoort if we can get more out of the package.”

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Krack confirmed that the revised AMR26 “is lighter and has more downforce,” a golden ratio for finding lap time.

Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey stated that further tweaks are coming for Zandvoort. There, the upgraded Honda engine will also debut, following a Hungaroring filming day which saw the B-spec AMR26 and revised Honda engine combine for the first time.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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