The Silverstone-based team took two podium places with Sebastian Vettel this year, although the German’s runner-up in Hungary last week can be challenged as his car ran out of fuel for post-race checks.
But despite some obvious highlights, Aston Martin is aware that it failed to match the tremendous momentum from late 2020 when it regularly battled for podiums and won the Sakhir Grand Prix.
It was clear to the team that changing the floor rules for this season would hurt their low-rake car concept a lot more than their high-rake competitors, and that lets them catch up for the early part of the season.
Stroll agrees that the new regulations have been the biggest barrier to progress, but he believes profits were made in the first half of the year.
“I think it was definitely a challenging season,” he said. “That is not what we were aiming for with the rule changes after the end of last year.
“We suffered a drop in performance and that made the start of the season a little more difficult.
“But there were some positive aspects. I think we’ve made progress as a team and improved the car since the start of the season. There are still a lot of races so I’m looking forward to it and” let’s see what happens. “
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Team boss Otmar Szafnauer believes that progress in making amends for the losses will be hampered by the strict homologation limits for 2021.
“The team did a wonderful job and worked tirelessly to get some of that loss of downforce back,” he said.
“But unfortunately we are a bit limited due to the regulations. We can’t really increase the stern height.
“With that in mind, I think they did a good job. We got back some of the relative performance we had, not all, but we can’t get everything back for two reasons: We have limited time to spend on this year’s car because it is at the expense of the next one Year goes, and secondly, our hands are tied when it comes to raising the stern height. “
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But despite those limits, Szafnauer believes Aston Martin can get even more out of their car during the remainder of the 2021 season.
“We’re going to improve this car bit by bit, but more by understanding it rather than making pretty big upgrades,” he added.
“Then the team at base focuses on ’22. I think they did a wonderful job getting the car to where it is now. I mean, almost every part that was wind licked has been changed . “
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