Mike Krack has hailed last year’s Australian Grand Prix as a turning point for his Aston Martin team.
The final F1 practice session around Melbourne’s Albert Park proved to be a disaster as both Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll crashed out.
To rub salt into those wounds, Stroll then crashed into Williams’ Nicholas Latifi during the first part of qualifying, causing a red flag that at least allowed Vettel to take part in the session, although he was the second slowest of those that set a time.
The four-time F1 champion, however, added insult to injury during the race, remarkably making it four accidents in two days for the team, and a very costly and painful weekend overall.
Krack, who had only been in charge for a few weeks by the time of that race, concedes the morale inside the team could have rapidly deteriorated from that moment.
Reflecting on how different next weekend’s Australian GP will be compared to last year given Aston Martin’s performance so far this season, Krack said: “Let’s wait. Hopefully, we won’t have the cars in bits again!
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“It was a very difficult moment but also I think it was the best moment for us as a team
“Because we sat together, all of us, after these events, let’s put it like that, to keep the language normal, and the way we stuck together, it could have been easy to fall apart completely as a team.
“But we really stuck together well and decided ‘Okay, we have got to work ourselves out of this’, so for me, it was actually the highlight of last year.”
Aston morale now incredible – Krack
One year on and Aston Martin is a team transformed following a winter of development that has propelled it from a finish of seventh in last season’s constructors’ championship to the second-fastest on the grid so far this campaign.
Back-to-back podiums for Fernando Alonso behind Red Bull one-twos in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have underlined the fact the AMR23 is a quick and reliable car.
As to the team’s morale now, Krack added: “It’s incredible. You cannot believe it if you do not live it.
“There is a huge momentum, huge energy in the team. I’m looking forward to going to work because everybody’s just flat out, flat out.
“You have to push the people out to go home, to see their families at times.
“All weekend (in Jeddah) we had a mission control in the office, people looking at stuff, analysing, trying to improve, so it’s really a pleasure to work in the team.”
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