Mike Krack (Aston Martin Team): “That’s the million-dollar question”

The first few races were a test of patience for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team. The AMR26, designed by star designer Adrian Newey, fell well short of expectations. First, vibrations caused headaches for the engineers; once these had been sorted out, stability issues continued to cause frustration in the Green team’s pit.

Whilst their rivals were already improving their cars’ performance, Aston Martin were working behind the scenes on a comprehensive upgrade, which is finally set to hit the track in Budapest. Speaking in the Spa paddock, Mike Krack said: “We’ve got one more week to go, then comes the race that will bring this difficult phase to an end. But the mood within the team was never bad. We’ve been through a tricky time together, and we sat down and talked it through. Because everyone has good days and bad days. But we’re all in the same boat, and I think we’ve all handled that really well on a human level, I reckon.”

When asked whether both cars would be ready to race with the update in Budapest, the Luxembourger replied as follows: “That’s the million-dollar question. Everyone is working day and night to get the parts and the cars ready. And of course, when you embark on a project like this, you want to set the deadlines as tight as possible. I always think positively, so I’m assuming we’ll be ready. But we won’t have five spare cars for every driver.”

And regarding the spare parts situation, Krack revealed: “Of course, you have various scenarios that you run through, because you can’t make yourself dependent on a single part. But we won’t have a complete backup for everything; everyone has done their best to have a Plan B in place in case one or two components fail.”

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