This has not been an easy season for Aston Martin, but the last three races have seen a remarkable transformation. Having languished in ninth place just a few weeks ago, ahead only of Williams, a string of good results has seen the Silverstone outfit leapfrog Haas and AlphaTauri and close in on sixth placed Alfa Romeo.
After Austin the gap to the Swiss team is just three points, and given that the momentum is clearly with Aston, there would seem to be a good chance that the team can do enough in the final three events to bag that sixth place.
“There is a lot of positive spirit, a lot of positive energy” Mike Krack
If that happens it will be a huge morale boost to everyone in the camp after the team struggled for much of the season to live up to the hype associated with the brand, and encouraged by the spending spree on top technical names. A leap of three places in the constructors’ table also represents a significant jump in income from the F1 organization, and while Lawrence Stroll is hardly short of funds, it all helps.
“It’s very positive in the team,” said team boss Mike Krack of the recent surge. “At home, mission control, here on track, everybody’s really, really focused. I think we have now scored 30-ish some points in the last 10 races.
“So the trend is for us – but we are concentrated. And one of the good things today [at COTA] what how we could have gotten Alfa. We said, okay, then we’ll do it next time. There is a lot of positive spirit, a lot of positive energy, in the factory and here. So much encouraging.”
Aston was on the back foot from the season opener in Bahrain
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The revival began with sixth for Lance Stroll and eighth for Sebastian Vettel in Singapore, and was followed by sixth for the German in Japan. In the USA Stroll ran as high as third at the start, Vettel led for a couple of laps during the pit stop sequence, and the pair looked set to ultimately secure a net sixth and seventh.
Then it all went wrong, with Stroll retiring after contact with future team-mate Fernando Alonso, and Vettel dropping out of the top 10 after a dodgy pit stop.
Somehow Vettel found the pace with which to recover to eighth, fighting off Kevin Magnussen on the last lap. It was a good comeback, but overall the team had lost a sixth place and valuable points that came with it. However, Krack denied that it was frustrating to have missed out.
“Frustrating is a big word,” he said. “I’ve tried to take the positives and there are many, many positives. And I think it will be wrong to say now, yeah, we had a long pitstop, or an incident on track. This can happen to anyone.
“And I think if we gain or lose sixth position, it was not because of today. This weekend, there were a lot of positives, and I bank on them, we will analyze the pit stop, and we will do the correct action.”
Krack highlights Melbourne as a particular low point for the Silverstone team
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The gap to Alfa is only three points, but Krack says there is no guarantee that Aston can steal that sixth place.
“We need to respect Alfa Romeo,” he said. “They also had an update here, they were pretty fast in qualifying as well. It is not given that we will make it.
“And also, we must not forget the results of teams behind that are not far, that if we have a double DNF, it could quickly swing in the other direction.”
