Aston Martin prefers an evolutionary approach

Aston Martin F1 boss Mike Krak believes most teams in the championship will take an evolutionary approach to developing their 2024 cars, although he is unsure how much that will apply to Mercedes and Ferrari.

Formula 1 is preparing for its third season after switching to the current technical regulations that require the construction of cars based on ground effect, and in the previous two the Red Bull Racing team almost completely dominated, winning 38 of the 44 Grand Prix.

The rest of the teams were in the role of catching up, some had more efficient cars, others less so, but only RB19 can best cope with different types of tracks and with different conditions. However, Krak does not believe it is necessary to rely on a revolutionary approach to close the gap with Red Bull.

“When the rules remain stable, as they are now, teams tend to favor evolutionary approaches,” Speedcafe quotes Krak. – When you have such an excellent car like Red Bull, many rivals will try to go in the same direction. On the other hand, we have heard from Ferrari and Mercedes that they are planning to make very serious changes to the design of their cars, and it will be interesting to see what they will introduce.

Ultimately, if the technical regulations remain unchanged, the peloton will become denser year after year, and then success will largely depend on the correct organization of all work processes.

If the cars are approximately equal in speed, your position on the starting field will depend on several nuances. In Sao Paulo, for example, we saw that the time of the driver who won pole was only six-tenths better than the time of the one who started from twentieth position, and this difference should become even smaller in the coming years. I will be surprised if the spread becomes greater than last season.”
It is no coincidence that Mike Krak talks about the efficiency of all work processes, because last season his team could not always perfectly cope with the development of tactical schemes and pit stops, and sometimes the technical reliability of the AMR23 cars left much to be desired. .

As a result, Aston Martin F1 took 5th place in the Constructors’ Championship, losing 22 points to McLaren, which improved significantly in the second part of the season. But up to and including the Dutch Grand Prix she was in the top three, second only to Red Bull and Mercedes.

“I am relentless in my efforts to convince everyone that safety, reliability and efficiency of all work processes must be a priority,” Krak added. “In all sessions, at every stage, all year round we have to give 100%, because if we don’t do this we won’t be able to fully utilize the potential of the drivers, the engineers and the car. We must ensure that all weaknesses are eliminated, which we have not always been able to do this year.”