Aston Martin F1 will bring upgrades to the upcoming Canadian Grand Prix, but remains confident it is not behind its rivals in F1’s development war. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll fell behind Mercedes and Ferrari at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in a tough battle for Red Bull’s front-runners.
Aston Martin’s poor performance could suggest it was overtaken on pace by a late introduction of the updates as its rivals introduced substantial upgrades to their cars in the last two races. The situation came after Alonso urged the team to step up the introduction of upgrades in order to maintain its position as a regular podium contender. Aston Martin F1 team principal Mike Clack said Alonso was right to put pressure on the team, but stressed that plans were in place for future improvements. “Alonso is right to ask for upgrades and put pressure on us,” said Clack. ‘We’ll see what happens in Canada. I think it’s too early to think that things have changed. Clack cited the fact that Aston Martin struggled on the soft tires in the opening stint at Barcelona, but things seemed to stabilize after everyone switched to the hard compound late in the race. Asked if he felt the rival upgrades had shifted the landscape, Mike Clack said, “No, I don’t think so.” “Because in the second half of the race, for example when we put on the hard tyres, we were completely in the game compared to our rivals. “So we need to understand what happened early on. The weather turned cloudy early, so I thought the soft tires would give us an advantage.” “But we need to understand why there was such a difference in competitiveness at different times of the race.” Clack believes the Spanish standings don’t directly reflect the pace of the top teams. This is because Alonso’s chances in the race were greatly diminished when he dropped down in qualifying Q1 and suffered floor damage, leaving him unable to challenge the front row. “I think it’s too early or too easy to say that because we don’t see the whole picture in qualifying,” said Krak about whether he feels Barcelona have shown the current pecking order in terms of pace. “This is similar to the situation early in the season when it was said that we needed three races to see where we really were,” he said. But our initial analysis so far does not reflect that.”
2023-06-10 00:30:36
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