Aston Martin has been challenged to start performing Grands Prix and have the same level of reliability as Red Bull if it wants to compete at the top of Formula 1.
The team’s reward for a great 2023 campaign, in which it was the closest competitor to Red Bull in the initial races, was eight podiums and more than five times as many points as in 2022.
However, the team fell back in the mid-season as modifications did not perform as planned, and it finished fifth in the standings, with Red Bull winning 21 of 22 races.
While both Performance Director Tom McCullough and CEO Mike Krack were pleased with the progress achieved, they both agreed that reaching the Red Bull level of trackside operations was a big aim for the team.
Aston Martin needs to improve.
“The team has generally executed weekends well, and in the past, we were very well-known for that,” McCullough told RacingNews365 and other media outlets.
“On top of that, we’re obviously trying to design and develop a car to fight at the front, and we had a rear wing in Suzuka with a manufacturing problem where it failed, and the power unit, or rather exhaust problem, in Jeddah.”
“These are the things that don’t happen as a team if we want to fight at the front, and you have to have perfect weekends, weekend in and weekend out.”
“Another example from Red Bull comes from both the reliability and operational sides.
“That is the standard we must achieve.”
“On the operational side, if we don’t manage to be at 100%, which we must be in every session and event throughout the year, we won’t be able to extract the maximum performance from the driver, car, set-up, or engineer.”
“We must guarentee that we have this box ticked and we have failed to do so a couple of occasions this year, but we know we need to have it right.”
