Mike Krak: It was good to work on the wet track

Saturday’s practice at Silverstone was accompanied by weather that was more like autumn: it was quite cool and it started to rain, the intensity of which varied continuously. Fernando Alonso set the 8th fastest time in these conditions, Lance Stroll – 12th.

After the session, Mike Krak, head of Aston Martin F1, commented on the results, and also said a few words about one of the major news items of the past week: the signing of Andy Cowell, an experienced engine engineer whose talent is well known throughout the paddock.

Mike Krak: “It’s cold today, so it’s not easy to figure out how the tyres work. In previous years we didn’t have the opportunity to work with intermediate tyres very often, and now we were surprised that you can do a lot of laps with them, but at the same time you can’t warm up easily. But I think everyone was in a similar situation, everyone was trying to understand the behaviour of tyres better.

But we have to try to get the best possible results in all conditions, especially because we know that qualifying can also take place in the rain. That’s why it was useful to work on a wet track. Both Aston Martin drivers complained during the session about typical problems in such conditions: the car doesn’t like to enter corners and accelerates badly out of them. We will try to solve this somehow.

The weather forecast promises that it will continue to rain for a while, so there is a good chance that qualifying will start on wet asphalt.”

Asked how important the signing of Andy Cowell was for the team, Krack replied: “Look at his career: it is really impressive. When he was chief mechanic at Mercedes, the team dominated Formula 1, which speaks for itself. It is great that we have signed a contract with such a specialist and now we are looking forward to the start of our collaboration.”