Although their decline was astonishing and they “only” finished the season in fifth place, as they were still second in the first races, Aston Martin team leader, Mike Crack, stated that the team members are not disappointed, as they are realistic about their season. And the situation.
The biggest surprise of the first half of the 2023 season was provided by Aston Martin: the team that was in midfield last year suddenly emerged as a podium contender and, thanks to Fernando Alonso, they successfully clawed their way into the top three six times in the first eight weekends. At the time, it seemed that if they maintained their form, they could challenge for a podium finish at the end of the year.
However, in the summer months, there was a stunning drop in form and the team finished – despite showing new flashes in recent weekends – in only fifth place in the championship standings: in addition to Mercedes and Ferrari, they were overtaken by McLaren, which improved significantly during the season. .
When team principal Mike Crack was asked if the final result was disappointing for them after the exciting start, the specialist stated that they were not disappointed, as they did not let the results “blind” them even when climbing the podium. “It’s not disappointing, because you have to be realistic about where you are“, He said.
“We started the year very well, but we also have to analyze why we are in this situation. If someone really analyzes this and sees where he is realistically, he cannot be disappointed. We were surprised, and I think everyone was surprised, that some people did not “They start the way we expected.” he added.
“Thanks to the fact that they have improved, they have returned to normal, so to speak. It is something that we cannot control with the firepower that we have. In that sense, I think it would be wrong to talk about disappointment. We know that we have to work hard if we want to To become a stronger team.But it would be wrong to call it a disappointment“I declare.
Team performance engineer Tom McCullough emphasized that the most important thing for development now is for Aston Martin to collect the right data and learn from 2023.”We are primarily understanding-driven, not performance-oriented, because if we are too performance-oriented, we can easily get lost.
“In Melbourne, for example, we finished third and fourth, so we can say it was a good race and we congratulate ourselves. But we were only the fourth fastest car on that track. We looked at the data and understood why. This is also part of the development of the car. This is the reality “We are very hard on ourselves after the weekend. Regardless of our results, we ask ourselves where we were strong, where we were bad, and what still needs improvement.”He confirmed.
Fernando Alonso (Photo: XPB)
