Aston Martin warns of tougher F1 races to come

Mike Krack has admitted Fernando Alonso’s ninth-place finish in the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix was facilitated by Zandvoort’s track characteristics, while Aston Martin is yet to extract the full potential of the upgraded AMR26.

After qualifying down in 18th, Alonso made the most of an opportunistic one-stop strategy to take an unexpected ninth-place finish, right ahead of a frustrated Pierre Gasly.

While most drivers had two pitstops, Aston Martin needed to be out of sync in order to profit from the AMR26’s velocity in corners, where the Honda-powered machine made up what it lacked in top speed.

Asked if Aston Martin’s race pace was better than the qualifying pace, chief trackside officer Krack wholeheartedly agreed but pointed out that less favourable tracks like Monza and Baku were coming up, with some of the longest straights on the calendar.

“Since Budapest we know that we're a bit stronger in the race,” Krack said. “I think Fernando said today our result will depend more or less on how long the straights are.

“So these were now two races where the straights were a bit on the short side. So we will have tougher races to come, but I think that this is part of the game. You have races where you're strong, and you have races where you're less strong. So it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes.”

Aston Martin had the second-slowest car in terms of straightline speed in qualifying at Zandvoort, recording a best of 309.5km/h – well down on Alpine’s 331.7km/h, and just narrowly edging Cadillac’s 309.4km/h.

That was despite the introduction of Honda’s long-awaited power unit upgrade, which was meant to substantially improve performance after the car was plagued by crippling issues early on. But there’s at least progress on the chassis side, which was demonstrated again in Zandvoort.

“We get to know this package more and more,” Krack said. “With the large package that we introduced in Budapest, it will take some sessions to learn how to deal with it and to learn how to set it up. And the same goes actually also for the introduction of the power unit now.

“We need to learn how to use it, we need to learn how to optimise it, and I think it's going to take us a couple of events, but it was a good step forward.

Pressed on the positive comments made by Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll on the radio, Krack explained: “It goes along with what I said in terms of trying to understand the package. If you have changes at this large scale, with the intensity of the sessions, it's always difficult to get the maximum out of it all the time. And the more sessions we get, the more we will get it under control.

“But there will always be sessions where you will have a bit more difficulties, some others where it will be easier, and we had quite a good configuration this weekend.”

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