Exclusive: Aston Martin commitment pledged after 'surprising' Audi link

Mike Krack has affirmed his commitment to Aston Martin in the wake of recent speculation linking him to a move to Audi.

Rumours suggested that due to an alleged internal power struggle between Sauber CEO Andreas Seidl and Oliver Hoffmann, the general representative of Audi's F1 project, Krack would return to Hinwil to replace the former McLaren team principal.

Krack worked at Sauber's headquarters for eight years from 2001 to 2009, initially as a data analysis engineer and then race engineer for the F1 team before becoming chief engineer for BMW Sauber.

After eight years with BMW Motorsport from 2014, including its head for just under a year, Krack was poached by Aston Martin to become its team principal in early 2022.

Given his background, links to Audi are unsurprising, although in speaking to RacingNews365, he conceded that after reading the report that "it was surprising to see my name linked to that project".

"I worked there for many, many years in Hinwil, so it probably comes from there," added Krack. "Some people maybe remember my name, but I was as surprised as you."

Further dismissing the speculation, Krack added: "We are so busy making our cars faster, we don't have time to look at all these rumours and media stuff.

"At the end of the day, our focus is on this car, next year's car, and we have a huge project ahead of us with '26, so that is where my focus is.

"Of course, I'm committed to this team. I'm very committed to this team."

Pushed for clarification on that he would not be going anywhere in the near future, he replied: "Depends on what the near future means - and the near future for me is the next 10 years."