12 May 2023 , 05:00
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Aston Martin are not concerned about the threat posed by Mercedes and Ferrari to their new-found position as leader of the opposition to runaway leaders Red Bull.
That was the declaration from Mike Krack with his team has flying high as the second quickest on the grid so far this season. That is quite the achievement given the stranglehold the 'big three' have had on the Formula 1 world for many years.
Fernando Alonso has very much been the face of their charge. The 41-year-old has a new lease of life with a competitive car under him and has four podiums to show for his first five races of the season. In contrast, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have one each, while George Russell and Carlos Sainz are yet to finish in the top three.
Aston Martin sit second in the constructors' standings, six points ahead of Mercedes and 24 clear of Ferrari. Both those teams plan on bringing upgrades to their cars for the next race at Imola, but team principal Krack is not wasting any time worrying about what other teams might be doing.
"We're not really observing too much what is their situation, where do they come from or what do they do next," he told reporters. "We do our thing, we have our plan and it will not change so much if one of the other teams brings upgrades every race.
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"Our plan cannot change because, otherwise, we are always reactive. It is important that you define yourself, put the roadmap in place, define what you need and you follow it, and obviously you need to react left and right depending on how the development goes. But you should not get too much taken away by what the others are doing.
Mike Krack is only interested in focussing on his Aston Martin team (Getty Images)"We're pushing quite hard on the developments, and we're quite confident that for the next events, the difference will not be too big as the development race goes on. But then what comes after say mid-season, we cannot say at this stage because we have to see who has spent how much and where you are at that stage."
Ferrari in particular look to be in quite the mess given their reliability concerns, worries over a twitchy car and mistakes made by Leclerc while trying to extract peak performance. Krack, however, feels the Scuderia has "been fast from the first race" and expects the Italians to click into gear.
He added: "They always had issues – Charles was in P3 in Bahrain when he had the DNF, and we gained from it, and then in Jeddah there was the penalty. In Australia they had the incident in Turn 1, so I think they were always there, but it did not materialise at the end of the day, but they have never been slow."