Aston Martin boss Mike Krack has urged his team to approach the 2025 Formula 1 season with a “humble attitude” amid the woes it has experienced in recent times.
The Silverstone-based squad has been on an alarming decline since a remarkable start to 2024 saw Fernando Alonso log six podiums from the opening eight rounds.
Aston Martin retained fifth position in the Constructors’ Championship in 2024 but with a considerable 186 points less than it had managed in the previous campaign.
However, Aston Martin’s regression was even graver than the standings suggested as more troubles with development saw it end the season struggling to bag points.
Indeed, the British marque accrued fewer points than Alpine and Haas past the summer break as it toiled with updates that induced negative handling characteristics.
But while it ended the campaign on a more positive note as Alonso took successive top-10 results, Krack has warned Aston can’t be oblivious to the team’s problems.
“It should not blind us… we are not fifth anymore for a while already,” Krack told media including Motorsport Week.
“And there is always a risk. You look at the paper, you say you are finishing fifth, you scored the last two races, everything is fine. It’s something you must not fall far off.”
Aston Martin admits to development struggles
Krack acknowledged that Aston Martin has been unable to replicate the gains that its rivals have made with the current ground-effect cars since the middle of 2023.
“That is something that we are really discussing internally quite a lot,” he conceded. “The way we have gone, we have done things. I think there’s no hiding.
“For 18 months, we have not really managed to add completely the upgrade [that] really gave us a substantial improvement in performance, and that is why we have to question the way we do them. That is something that we are really discussing quite intensely.”
Aston Martin not prepared to give up on 2025
Aston Martin has been backed to utilise the impending rules reset in 2026 to challenge the elite as it partners with Honda and welcomes design genius Adrian Newey.
Krack, though, has indicated that Aston Martin’s tribulations mean that it is not in a position where it can elect to sacrifice a season to focus on the regulation change.
“We cannot afford to let 2025 slip,” Krack, who has been at the helm since 2022, stressed.
“But I think we have now delivered two years in a row, not really the performance [that] we wanted.
“So, I think about 2025, we need to be humble. We need to take a humble approach, [to] try to solve one step after the next issues that we were having this year.
“Because the cars are quite mature now. There is still quite some big differences between the cars.
“But everybody has reached a level of maturity that I think we don’t have. And I think this is something that we really have to catch up.”
READ MORE – Why Fernando Alonso views 2026 the ‘time of truth’ on his F1 retirement plans
Discussion about this post