Aston Martin kicked off the 2023 season with an impressive and unexpected surge, catching all teams except Red Bull off guard with their remarkable resurgence in form to become the second faster car on the grid. Following a seventh-place finish in 2022, Aston Martin raised eyebrows across the paddock with a remarkable surge in the early races of the 2023 season. The Silverstone-based team secured podium positions in six out of the initial eight races.

Maintaining that level of performance throughout the season has proven to be challenging, as the rest of the grid mobilized their resources to challenge Aston Martin’s position. The team’s ranking has shifted from second to fifth fastest, facing a barrage of rivals who have outpaced them in terms of development.

The team’s fortunes have waned since Fernando Alonso’s second-place triumph in Montreal. Their performance witnessed a downturn, with Alonso managing fifth-place finishes in Austria and Belgium, standing as their standout achievements in the final five races leading to the summer break.

During a recent media interview, Aston Martin team principal, Mike Krack, candidly explained the factors contributing to their slide down the rankings while strategically planning their route back towards podium glory.

Mike Krack:

“I think the cars are quite complex. You improve them, you try to bring upgrades and sometimes you create side effects. Or you change a bit the balance and all of a sudden, the car is less easy to drive than it was before for example. And these are things that you realise only when you drive.”

“We had some of our competitors making huge progress and this leads to dropping down in the pecking order. And you need a couple of events to analyse that, to understand it and to try and to help it.”

“Belgium was the first step in trying to halt this trend, we brought some last-minute upgrades here and it seems to have helped a little bit, so we are quite happy for that. From our side we will try to improve the car further. There are a couple of things planned for Zandvoort, and we need to close that gap again.”

“the other hand, the gaps are very small. We have seen how much we have lost, and I think the most important is to recover that and try to recover a little bit more.”