Mike Krak: In Alonso, the lack of “stardom” is surprising

Mike Krak, head of Aston Martin F1, is very pleased with how the partnership between Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll is developing. The two-time world champion immediately found a common language with the team, there are no signs of “stardom” in his behavior at all.

Mike Krak: “Our drivers get along very well because I think they have known each other for ten years, since Lance was a student at the Ferrari Racing Academy. You can clearly see how they push each other, and during meetings in the team there is a very good dialogue between them.

Fernando helped us a lot during the tests in Bahrain, which Lance missed due to an injury, although of course he was in constant contact with the team. Of course, the interaction of partners continues now, so it was really nice for Lance to earn points in the first Grand Prix of the season, although technical problems prevented him in Jeddah.

Their cooperation is developing very constructively, but I would say they have developed friendly relations, which is very encouraging for us. In general, they rate the behavior of the car about the same, although Lance sometimes has slightly different requirements for the AMR23, but it cannot be said that he prefers completely different settings.

It’s just that, compared to him, Fernando had more time to study and adapt to the car. Lance missed the tests, so he has to catch up already during the race weekends, from session to session.

In general, Alonso knows the car a little better, but in general, since the partners have a good exchange of information, together with the engineers of the team, everyone knows how to create a very fruitful collaboration.

I can’t say that anything really surprises me while working with Fernando. We started communicating even before our collaboration started, and that’s how we were able to discover his strengths. It became clear that a person appeared in the team who drives everyone very intensively, charges with his energy and enthusiasm. However, he is not only a very fast racer: he is also distinguished by the ability to very effectively convey information to the team’s engineers.

However, if there’s one point that surprises me, it’s the lack of “stardom”. Fernando is a very normal boy. When a person who has achieved such success comes to the team, you involuntarily begin to think that he will act like a star, make some special requirements, etc., but there is no such thing. It is very easy to communicate with him.

Overall, this is only surprising, and everything else is quite in line with our expectations.