Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack insists that the morale within the camp remains “surprisingly strong” despite the side’s slump.
After successive finishes of seventh upon morphing into Aston Martin, the Silverstone-based squad began the current campaign by scoring six podiums in the first eight races.
However, Aston Martin has only added one further top-three finish in the eight rounds since then, having been outdeveloped by Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.
But Krack asserts that spirits remain on the high side inside the team, citing that every member is determined to help Aston Martin return to its early-season competitiveness.
When asked to assess the current morale at Aston Martin, Krack said: “Surprisingly strong, all of them, especially in the garage.
“You can see everybody wants to get back to the podium. Everybody liked this experience from the beginning of the year, so the morale is strong, and it is something that we need to keep up.
“But also, we need to not only talk about it – we need to bring upgrades, we need to bring our car back into a better window, and then the morale is anyway good.”
With six rounds remaining, Krack believes it’s become increasingly difficult to predict how an individual team will fare on a given circuit.
“When you look back over the last races it’s very difficult to make predictions,” he stated.
“At the beginning, we thought you look at this track or this track and thought here we are going to be a bit better and here we are going to be a bit worse.
“But the last races have told us that any team can be on the back foot, anytime.
“We’ve seen it in Singapore with the guys [Red Bull] that have won the championship. We’ve seen it in Monza, we were less competitive. We’ve seen in Zandvoort, Ferrari were less competitive.
“It’s going up and down I think for everybody, and it’s really difficult to predict what is going to happen from now until the end.”
Having lost touch with Ferrari and Mercedes in the battle for second place in the Constructors’ standings, Aston Martin is now in danger of surrendering fourth to McLaren.
The Woking-based entry trailed Aston Martin by 137 points after the Canadian Grand Prix, but the introduction of a heavily revised car in Austria has witnessed McLaren become a regular contender for podium finishes.
McLaren has since cut the deficit to only 49 points, resulting in Lando Norris declaring he is confident his team can steal fourth.
However, Krack has been coy on the battle, citing that Aston Martin must focus on ensuring it maximises its own package.
“We cannot say what will happen now until the end,” the Aston Martin chief examined.
“We have no influence over what they are doing, so we need to maximise our own package, at all times, in each session, to get the maximum out of it and try to make it a fight until the last race.”
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