Aston Martin makes ‘tougher races’ warning after season-best result

Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack said the team has stronger race pace than over one lap, emphasising there is still work to be done on optimising both its updated chassis and power unit.

The Silverstone-based team introduced sweeping chassis upgrades at the Hungarian Grand Prix, before pairing that with an updated Honda power unit at Zandvoort over the weekend.

Aston Martin expecting tougher races as straight-line weakness identified

Fernando Alonso utilised a one-stop strategy after an early red flag to move up the pack, finishing a season-high ninth place after starting 18th on the grid at Zandvoort.

He beat cars which had largely been faster than Aston Martin all season in both Alpine and Racing Bulls machines, as well as the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto, with the AMR26 looking quicker in race trim in particular.

However, Krack explained there is still some way to go to make the most of what is underneath the drivers with recent changes, which will come with time on track.

That said, rounds featuring longer straights – a couple of which will be imminent in Italy and Azerbaijan in particular – may prove to be more of a struggle, according to the double world champion.

“Yeah, definitely,” Krack replied when asked if Aston Martin’s race pace outstrips its one-lap ability.

“I think since Budapest, we know that we’re a bit stronger in the race. I think Fernando said our result will depend more or less on how long the straights are.

“So these were now two races where the straights were a bit on the short side, so we will have tougher races to come, but I think that is part of the game.

“You have races where you’re strong, and you have races where you’re less strong, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes.

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“We get to know this package more and more. I think we said with the large package that we introduced in Budapest, it will take some sessions to learn how to deal with it and to learn how to set it up.

“The same goes, actually, for the introduction of the power unit. Now we need to learn how to use it, we need to learn how to optimise it, and I think that it’s going to take us a couple of events, but it was a good step forward.

“If you have changes at this large scale with the intensity of the sessions, it’s always difficult to get the maximum out of it all the time.

“The more sessions we get, the more we will get it under control, but there will be always sessions where you will have a bit more difficulties. Some others where it will be easier, and I think we had quite a good configuration this weekend.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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