Trouble at Aston Martin: 'Lawrence Stroll is not happy'
- Ludo van Denderen
It seemed to be a true fairytale: Aston Martin got off to a great start to the 2023 season, with Fernando Alonso racking up podium finishes. Meanwhile, the team has fallen way back. While Lawrence Stroll, one of the team's owners, has always said that Aston Martin should become a top team, fifth place in the final constructors' rankings seems to be the maximum for now.
In Mexico, Aston Martin had a dramatic weekend in which it seemed to be mostly a team in the rear. In the end, it left Mexico City without any points. And that led to angry faces at the top of the team, Motorsport-Total noted. "Lawrence is not happy," revealed team boss Mike Krack. "But we are not happy either. Nobody is happy. "
Updates missed their mark at Aston Martin
The road downhill has been fairly gradual for Aston Martin. Whereas competitors initially moved closer to the Silverstone-based team with new updates and then passed them, Aston Martin failed to make improvements on the car. Because of the move to a new factory - and all the inconveniences that came with it for performance at the moment - Krack and consorts always reckoned that podium finishes would not always be in the cards.
But such a collapse that even AlphaTauri or Haas were superior to the team in Mexico was never thought of. "When you have such a great start to the season and then lose your competitiveness, nobody is happy. But we don't need [Lawrence] to tell us that," the team boss stressed." We are a strong team and we have to work together to get out of this," said Krack, who hopes to still put in a better performance at the concluding races this season than last weekend.
Fernando Alonso would also like to be on the podium once more this season. At the same time, the Spaniard will be realistic that third place in the drivers' championship - a place on which he had long bivouacked - is now far out of sight.