Aston Martin: Imola points not a reflection of improved pace

Aston Martin team boss Mike Crack says his outfit's double top-ten finish at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was down to good race management and execution, not to the team extracting more performance from its AMR22 car.

After three pointless opening races and an outing in Australia marked by four crashes, Aston Martin finally succeeded in putting its first points of 2022 on the board last weekend at Imola, where Sebastian Vettel finished P8 while teammate Lance Stroll rounded off the top-ten.

However, Krack admitted that the result was achieved by the team taking its chances in the difficult conditions and executing well.

"We're happy, obviously, because we managed in difficult conditions on Friday and today to bring the car back in a better shape than it is by pace," said the Aston boss after the race.

"So I think the drivers and the team did a very good job there, in timing the stops right, in putting into action what we have learned yesterday from dry running.

"Mixed conditions or difficult conditions is where we thought we need to use our chances as best as we can. And I think in a normal dry race, it would have been very, very difficult for us.

"I don't think that there is more pace in the car than previously. If you look carefully into the sprint, we were having to defend hard. There was no chance we were going to finish in the top 10 yesterday.

"All in all, I'm satisfied with the first points of the season. But we have a long way to go, obviously. So we smile today, and tomorrow we work hard for the future."

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As a soggy race day dawned, Krack brought his troops together to remind everyone that Aston's good performance in the wet on Friday perhaps boded well for the team's chances of outperforming in the race, if execution followed.

"Australia was obviously very hard for all the people that worked really, really hard at the factory. We had no spares anymore," said Krack.

"So before the race we had a briefing with all the team. And we were saying we had similar conditions on Friday.

"And we did a very good job on Friday in my opinion, drivers and team, to bring the car higher up than it really was deserving to be. Then we said, okay, today's the same.

"So we start in P13 and P15, and maybe in the conditions if we do a job without mistakes, others might make some, then there is a chance to score.

"And it was a very good reaction from all the team who were super ready, super prepared, back in Silverstone in mission control, and also here.

"It was a great team effort today. And it was nice that we tried to make it happen like that, and then it does happen. It doesn't work, always to be honest.

"I think we had a track that was probably suiting us a little bit, and the conditions were helping. And I think we learned quite a lot from the sprint with the soft tyres that we could apply."

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