Aston Martin boss Mike Krack believes the squad's inconsistent Formula 1 form in 2022 is 'as simple' as racing on low vs high downforce tracks. Despite ambitions to fight for regular podiums and race wins and eventually contend for the World Championship, the grand idea to get Aston Martin to the front has not to plan this season with the team languishing ninth in the Constructors' only above Williams. Drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll have struggled with the AMR22 - which was re-developed at the Spanish Grand Prix with a major update - inspired by Red Bull - which has failed to deliver. Vettel's fifth place in Azerbaijan remains the highlight, with Team Principal Krack believing their form can simply be summed up by whatever configuration of track being used that weekend - with the Mercedes-powered car favouring high-downforce circuits such as Imola, Budapest or Zandvoort.
Speaking after a double DNF at the Italian Grand Prix - and knowing "coming here that the car would be very difficult" Krack admitted that Aston's problems are relatively straight-forward. "I think the pattern what you're saying is not wrong," he said when asked by media including RacingNews365.com if the root cause of the team's troubles was 'as simple' as low vs high downforce tracks. "We knew coming [to Monza] the way the car is, we knew that it was going to be very difficult. "And you would have seen in practice, we played around with wings, different wings, big wings, so we were always exchanging corner speed for straight line speed without increasing the overall performance. "In the end, we decided to go for the straight-line speed, but the car was very difficult in the race with a lot of sliding."
Hopeful for Singapore
As well as sixth in Baku, Vettel banked an eighth at Imola and at Spa - the latter requiring good downforce in the twisty middle sector - while Stroll has just five P10 finishes to his name in a poor season thus far. However, despite the expectations of progress not being met, Krack is confident the team will fare better at some upcoming races. "The races to come, we're quite confident, especially after our Zandvoort weekend where also in qualifying we were performing," he said. "We'll have further updates in Singapore, which is similar to Zandvoort and Budapest in downforce level, so we are quite confident that it will be a bit better."
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