Aston Martin outline F1 direction after major team restructure

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack says that re-building the Silverstone squad is a task that must be assessed from a long-term perspective.

The 52-year-old has overseen significant turnover in high-level personnel at the team since taking over at the helm in 2022.

Owner Lawrence Stroll has never shied away from his championship ambitions and there has been an influx of new faces in recent months, including new CEO Andy Cowell, while Adrian Newey will join next year to lead the technical team.

Meanwhile, Dan Fallows has been moved away from the technical director role, seemingly to make way for the decorated engineer, who he worked with at Red Bull.

Despite considerable change happening behind the scenes, Aston Martin has continued to struggle on track. After its strong start to the 2023 F1 season, when Fernando Alonso claimed six podiums in the opening eight rounds, the team has been unable to replicate that form on a consistent basis.

This term, it has occupied the no-man's land between the leading four, race-winning teams, and the rest of the F1 field. However, it has slipped back into the clutches of the bottom five teams over the course of the year.

Unsurprisingly, that has resulted in recent staff shake-ups, which in turn has prompted questions about the composition of the team.

When speaking to media including RacingNews365, Krack was asked if the internal structure at Aston Martin had become too complex and if that has led the team from punching above its weight to punching below it. 

"You have a team to develop, and you have a car team," he replied. "And you must be careful not to mix them too much.

"When it is the car is very short term. We speak [in] zero to eight, or 10 or 12 weeks; when you develop a team, [it is] maybe months and years.

"You need to isolate them, not mixing them too much, because very often you can be influenced by a bad result, but also you can be influenced by good results."

After Alonso secured six-consecutive points finishes to start the season, his and Aston Martin's form has been inconsistent.

It has caused expectations to be lowered, at least externally, but Krack has said recent points finishes for the Spaniard has been better than predicted. Those performances were followed up by three scoreless weekends for the team over the Americas triple header.

“We have had some good results over the last weeks [referring to Fernando Alonso's sixth and eighth-place finishes in Azerbaijan and Singapore], where maybe the result was even better than we were thinking,” he reflected.

“So we stay calm there, and we also have to stay calm when you don't score for an event."

With Cowell stepping into the CEO role, it has afforded Krack the opportunity to divide and conquer with some of his responsibilities. However, pushing the team on and up to the next level remains under his jurisdiction. 

“Absolutely," he responded when asked if team development was still in his remit.

“But I think I have great support here now from Andy [Cowell], with how we split our tasks, how we split our jobs, so I think we're moving in a good direction.”