Aston Martin F1 racing celebrated a comeback in the sport after 60 years. But their comeback season was far from perfect. Formula 1 introduced some changes to the regulations in 2021 compared to the previous season. They instructed the teams to make some changes to the bottom of the car to reduce downforce.
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This change affected the cars with low-rake concepts such as Mercedes and Aston Martin. But the latter has affected it the most, according to ex-F1 driver Karun Chandhok.
Former F1 driver explains how much the ground change has affected Aston Martin
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Karun Chandhok used social media to present a statistic of how much the teams have won compared to last season. Aston Martin, formerly known as Racing Point, finished fourth in the 2020 season but are currently battling for P5 in 2021 due to the change of ground.
Off to Spa for the start of the second half of the @ F1 year. Good time to take stock of what we’ve seen so far …
RBR & Merc super close. Entire field except for 9th place much closer to the front runners than last year, apart from Aston.
Changes in zoning have hurt Merc & Aston compared to the opposition pic.twitter.com/gET95iL9zV
– Karun Chandhok (@karunchandhok) August 25, 2021
Aston Martin are the only top team that lost performance last season. The floor regs didn’t influence the reigning champion Mercedes that much. Aston Martin built its cars according to the same philosophy as the German team.
Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer had previously mentioned the extent of the damage Floor Regs have inflicted on his team. But he hopes that his team can also minimize the loss of performance like Mercedes.
“I think we definitely have to see what lap times they can achieve,” said Szafnauer.
“We have the same drive train, the same transmission, the same rear suspension. So if they can do some of those lap times we should be able to get close – that gives us some hope, ”said the American.
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We try to fight back and never give up: Lawrence Stroll
Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll also admitted the team may not match last season’s results. But he mentioned that the team will not give up and will learn from Mercedes.
“We had a difficult start to the season. We were treated badly with the rule changes and we cut the ground which really hurt the low rake cars. We and Mercedes both lost almost a second per lap against our competitors.
SOCHI, RUSSIA – SEPTEMBER 29: Owner of Racing Point Lawrence Stroll and Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal and Chief Executive Officer of Racing Point speak in the paddock before the F1 Grand Prix of Russia at the Sochi Autodrom on September 29, 2019 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Charles Coates / Getty Images)
“So we’re trying to fight back and never give up, and we keep putting parts in the car to try to get back to where we should be.
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I don’t think we can go back to last year’s performance because then of course we would have to give up the focus on the 2022 car. It’s a fine balance. But we will fight to the end, “said Laurentius.
The British team is currently P7 in the overall standings, 48 points behind rivals Alpine and AlphaTauri.
Can Aston Martin recover and reduce the deficit?
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The post Analysis confirms the assumption that the 2021 F1 changes were unfriendly for Mercedes and Aston Martin first appeared on monter-une-startup.
