Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack has played down expectations for the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix despite the race providing a chance for a rebound from recent struggles. Fernando Alonso felt the Monaco Grand Prix was one of the Silverstone-based outfit's best chances of victory this year, with Max Verstappen and Red Bull's closest challenger that day. The Hungaroring features similar circuit characteristics to Monaco which suit the team's AMR23, with the lap consisting of slow and medium-speed corners. But whilst six podiums in the opening 10 races reflect strongly on Aston Martin's form, the past two events in Austria and Great Britain have provided more of a struggle, with the team settling in behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren in the pecking order. A return to a higher downforce configuration should help the team's prospects in Hungary, but Krack told media including RacingNews365 : "We are realists, we always have been and we have never been dreamers. "We will look at the track and we will look at our car, how to set it up for that. "If you look at the characteristic [of the track], it should play better into our car [strengths] than other circuits than we have been at."
Krack: Normal to have expectations this high
While Aston Martin came into the season with muted expectations, that has since changed given its competitiveness on track. On the change of outlook since an impressive start to the year, Krack explained: "That is the nice part of it; the level of expectation has risen from six podiums. "We sit here now with six podiums in 10 races, it's normal that the expectations are high and we will continue to try and fulfil the expectations. "I think it's a compliment that we have these expectations, it shows that we have done a good job so far."
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