After four-time F1 world champion Vettel was deposed by Ferrari last year, he explored a number of options before finally signing with the renamed Aston Martin squad in 2021.
Vettel had a difficult debut for Aston Martin in Bahrain. After the German driver retired in the first quarter and received a starting penalty, he finished 15th after a collision with Esteban Ocon, which earned him a 10-second time penalty.
Like last year, Aston Martin struggled to fight at the top of the midfield in Bahrain. The team believed the updated regulations had hurt its low-rake car concept.
When asked about Vettel’s struggles, Marko said he hadn’t changed his view that the former Red Bull driver should be absent for a year before returning under the new regulations in 2022.
“I was of the opinion that I also told you that he should take a year off, fix himself and ask himself what he wants,” said Marko in an exclusive interview with the German-speaking sister site Formel1.de from Motorsport. com.
“I believe that a lot is possible in Formula 1 next year. He didn’t do that. Now he’s in the Aston Martin, which of course suffers similarly to the Mercedes [with low rake].
“They are very similar. And this race was by no means the one that could have brought relief.”
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Although tech regulations have largely been frozen for 2021 to cut costs after the COVID-19 pandemic, the FIA made efforts to reduce downforce and slow down vehicles.
The main thrust of the downforce cut was concentrated on the floors of the cars and seems to have hurt the teams with low-rake vehicle concepts more than those with high-rake setups.
Mercedes was also hampered by the rule change. Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer estimated it was worth about a second per lap.
While Marko agreed that Aston Martin had been injured by the rule changes, he felt that this did not fully explain the performance gap the team was now facing.
“Let’s go back to the test in which Mercedes had a very unstable rear end: Mercedes managed to stabilize this to a large extent,” said Marko. “While Aston Martin did not do so well in my opinion. They will eventually get better handling together, but apparently not on the level of Mercedes.”
“And this one and a half seconds [to Mercedes]I would say it’s not just with Vettel, it’s partly in the car. At the moment I think Aston Martin is sixth or seventh in the rankings. But with the Mercedes engine and the options they have now, they are sure to move up.
“But that doesn’t change anything. The crash when [Vettel] drove in Ocon was incomprehensible. “
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