Aston Martin ponder 'one million dollar' question as major upgrade to be unleashed

Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack has raised the "$1 million" question around the team's eagerly anticipated Hungarian GP upgrade.

The Silverstone-based squad is finally going to unleash upgrades to its AMR26 chassis after electing to spend the first half of the season working through the numerous problems with the car in what has been a disappointing season. 

The team has not brought any upgrades, unlike F1 rivals, and thus has slipped further away from the back of the midfield, and was two seconds behind Cadillac in qualifying in Belgium.

However, Adrian Newey and his engineering team are preparing to bring a huge package to the Hungaroring, with Honda's power unit set to be upgraded at the Dutch GP following the summer break. 

Looking ahead to the deployment of the new parts, Krack spoke of the "$1 million question" around spare parts for the new upgrade.

"This is the $1 million question," Krack replied when asked by media, including RacingNews365, if the team would have enough parts of the new specification and an ample supply of spares.

"Everybody is working flat out to get the parts, to get the cars ready. It is a big undertaking if you decide to do it like this, because you always try to push the deadlines as far as you can. 

"So, it’s a big effort going on at the AMRTC at the moment, and I’m a positive thinker, so I think we will have two cars ready to go. 

Now, I don’t think we will have five spares of each, to be honest, and you always have to put scenarios in place for if you have this and not this, because you cannot make yourself dependent on one part missing and then you cannot do it.

"So, there are plans in place, like: ‘What if we don’t have that?’ ‘Can we run this?’

"Again, you will not have a full backup for everything. But I think everybody has done a good job in trying to put mitigations in place, but also to have plan Bs for if one or two components don’t make it."