Aston Martin refuse to use new race director as excuse for woeful performance

Krack in Australia — Photo: © LAT Images

Mercedes

Aston Martin refuse to use new race director as excuse for woeful performance

Sam Hall

Monday 18 April 2022 09:30

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has refused to blame FIA race director Niels Wittich for the team's struggles at the Australian Grand Prix after one of the four DRS was removed during the weekend.

The revamped Albert Park circuit saw F1 drivers tackle a layout that featured four DRS zones for the first time across the Friday running.

The fourth zone had been added along the lakeside with drivers travelling at higher speeds due to the removal of the old turn nine-10 chicane, but this was deactivated from Saturday onwards due to safety concerns.

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Aston Martin is among the teams suffering most with porpoising and this decision caused further headaches in the garage.

"The frustrating bit is that we were notified quite late about the change," explained Krack.

"There is a big expectation on this because as soon as the DRS zone was removed we were concerned we would run into more oscillation issues. You could see it also with other cars.

"The interesting bit was there was nobody running in the first 15 minutes of free practice three. There were a lot of people who had a bit of work to do.

"We had another check to do on the car which delayed us a little bit more than we wanted but finally we managed to get out."

FIA changes "no excuse"

Aston Martin endured a difficult and expensive weekend with incidents for both Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel, the latter making his first appearance of the season after contracting Covid-19.

Doubling down on his refusal to blame Wittich, Krack said: "It was a compromised session, it was always going to be a compromised session with this last-moment update.

"This should not be used as an excuse. Other teams handled it, and we have to be able to handle it as well."