Krack demands Aston Martin improvement to help Stroll

Mike Krack wants to see Aston Martin step up and help support Lance Stroll as the Canadian continues to struggle to match Fernando Alonso's results. Since the Canadian Grand Prix, Stroll has scored just seven points in Grands Prix with an additional five coming in the Austrian Sprint race, with Alonso hauling a total of 57 in the same period with four more coming from his fifth place in that Austrian event. While Alonso has scored all seven of Aston Martin's podiums in 2023, Stroll is yet to finish higher than fourth which he did in Australia after a strong start of the season. Stroll's lack of points in recent races has allowed Ferrari to slip ahead of Aston Martin and into third place in the Constructors' with Carlos Sainz on 117 to Charles Leclerc's 111 points. The gulf between Alonso and Stroll is currently 123 points after the Italian Grand Prix, second-biggest on the grid behind Max Verstappen's 145 point lead over Sergio Perez, but Krack feels the team must step up and support Stroll.

Krack's improvement

"There is not a marked gap in performance, there is a marked gap in points," Krack told media including RacingNews365. "It is important to separate between the two. "As a team, we are analysing the season from both perspectives on both drivers, and as a team, we need to do a much, much better job on that side of the garage. "[It is] with the race strategy but also we had reliability issues that were always hitting that car, so that is something we need to do much better on. Krack also believes that there is no in-built limitation within the AMR23 that Stroll is struggling with, and feels he can be 'on par' with Alonso. "When you look at the [Dutch Grand Prix] qualifying session, in Q1 at Zandvoort for example, there was nothing between them (Stroll was 0.270s ahead). "I don't think that there is any particular characteristic that is different for him than for Fernando. "He can be just the same [as Fernando]. "We had all the discussions when Sebastian [Vettel] joined the team - and that went pretty well so there is no reason why it should not be the same."