Vettel, along with Stroll, will receive new Aston Martin F1 upgrades at the Spanish GP

As the top-ranked driver in the championship, Stroll received the latest aerodynamic package Aston Martin developed for the Portuguese Grand Prix as the Silverstone-based team continues to strive to understand and improve their difficult AMR21 car.

Aston Martin Performance Engineering Director Tom McCullough announced that Vettel’s racing pace was slower compared to teammate Stroll because the new upgrades at Portimao were not carried out as the four-time world champion fell from 10th to 13th place, a place in front of Stroll – who recovered from the 17th.

“During the race, Sebastian slipped from his P10 starting position to a P13 position, while Lance climbed from his P17 starting position to a P14 position,” he said.

“You don’t have to be a skilled mathematician to realize that their racing performances were therefore arithmetic opposites, and that’s because Sebastian couldn’t stay in front of three cars that qualified behind him without aero updates. With aero updates, Lance was able to advance three cars that had qualified before him. “

McCullough also explained why Aston Martin was unable to install the upgrade on both cars in last weekend’s race.

“Ideally, you want to always be able to update both of your drivers’ cars at the same time, but that’s not always possible,” he added. “Aero updates take time to invent, test, prove, and manufacture. They are manufactured in series and not in parallel.

On the subject of matching items

“So sometimes you have time to just make one set before it’s time to transport the cars to the next Grand Prix. By the time we race in Barcelona next weekend, however, we expect we will have made enough new parts to provide both drivers’ cars with aero updates. “

Vettel said he will look to re-qualify in Spain in the third quarter as overtaking at Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya can be difficult.

“This weekend I’m going to let Lance use the upgrade in Portugal – which he thought promising – and I’m looking forward to seeing it for myself,” said Vettel.

On the subject of matching items

“If we look at the last race, it is clear that we have a better race pace than the performance in one lap. So we will try to make improvements on Saturday to get the best points on Sunday.

“We all know that Sunday afternoons in Barcelona can be difficult to overtake, so it’s important that we maximize our chances where we can.”

Vettel said Aston Martin rightly gave Stroll the updates first because he was more familiar with the car’s features. The German is still up to date after his winter change from Ferrari in the team.

“Obviously, he immediately felt a lot more comfortable with the car than I did,” he said. “We’re still learning about the car.

“I think it’s going to be a long season, of course, but these few races are very important now to keep track of things. We still change a lot of things from one session to another to push the limits.”