Mike Krak: Cars from different teams are starting to look more and more alike

Mike Krak, the head of Aston Martin F1, spoke about the results of the training in Suzuka, complained about the cold weather prevailing this weekend and also said that Lawrence Stroll is not negotiating with Adrian Newey.

Question: How are you? And what can you say about the results of Friday’s training? After all, if the time spent on the track is significantly limited, this is always not very cool…
Mike Krak: I’m doing fine, even though I’m cold. It is now quite cold in Suzuka, but we have postponed the Japanese race until April. However, the weather forecast for the next two days promises better weather, and we hope for that.

Q: Did you have enough time to evaluate the effectiveness of the technical innovations your team brought to Japan? It appears that during training the aerodynamic sensor system attached to Lance Stroll’s car suffered some damage?
Mike Krak: At this stage it was Lance’s turn to drive around the circuit in a car with an aerodynamic sensor system attached, and he did so in the first session. In modern Formula 1 you have to collect as much information as possible during the modernization process and in practice this grille on the left side got a little damaged, but this did not cause any problems.

We still managed to collect the data we needed and are ready to make the next decisions.

Question: Do you already know what configuration the cars of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso will be in for the remaining days of the weekend? Will both have the full range of updates you brought to Japan?
Mike Krak: We don’t call these updates “complex”. Some improvements concern the underbody, others concern the body panels. Instead, we simply continue the planned work to modernize the car, following the previously planned course. But I can confirm that we will indeed change the specification of Fernando’s car and that it will be the same as Lance’s car in this morning’s practice.

We always strive to analyze different machine configurations in detail, and today we wanted to make an accurate comparison of their effectiveness. There are two consecutive sprint stages ahead in which you don’t want to take too much risk, but unfortunately it would be difficult to do the benchmark work in the afternoon session. But in the morning we gathered enough information to make a decision.

Question: Everyone knows that Lawrence Stroll is a very ambitious person, and it is said that he offered Adrian Newey a contract for an astronomical amount – is this true?
Mike Krak: No.

Question: Are you saying that there is not a word of truth in any of the posts on this subject?
Mike Krak: We have a very strong engineering team, including the recent addition of Bob Bell, so we are happy with our engineering department at the moment.

Q: But you have to admit that your car’s aerodynamic body kit is strikingly similar to what we see at Red Bull – how is this possible? It seems that you are literally repeating the actions of your opponents step by step…
Mike Krak: I believe that when the regulations are formulated as they are now and remain stable for a number of years, you can generally see that the cars of different teams start to look similar. This convergence is due to the fact that the different chassis are based on approximately the same concepts.

To be honest, I don’t think our car has anything special that sets it apart from the cars of other championship teams.

Question: To what extent will Aston Martin be affected by the fact that you were not able to complete any long series of laps in today’s practice?
Mike Krak: This will affect all teams – Fernando has already said that this weekend will not be easy for everyone. But everyone is on an equal footing, and since the weather is still cool, we cannot use the information collected last year on this track – the work on the track takes place under completely different temperature conditions.

Do soft tires hold up? Is it too cold for hard tires? All this should be clarified tomorrow during the third training, try to analyze everything and draw the right conclusions. But I repeat: everyone is on an equal footing, and tomorrow we will see who has done their homework well and who has not.