Krack: If I'm honest, we expected more

While Aston Martin had a flying start for their 2023 F1 season with podiums coming in, the team failed to keep up with the competition in the development war, and while their start this year was far from stellar, the team claimed that they would develop better over the course of the season.

Speaking to Aston Martin F1's Official Website, Krack said: "If I'm honest with myself, and I think we should all be honest with ourselves: we expected more.

"We knew we had a bit of a gap to the cars in front, and how difficult it is to close that gap. We haven't managed it yet, and until we do, we cannot be happy," he added.

Aston Martin's upgrades haven't been as effective this year as well, as an initial package at Imola made the AMR24 harder to driver, while a new front wing at Silverstone slightly improved things.

Then came another major upgrade for the Hungarian GP, asked how that package performed, Krack said: "The updates that we fitted in Hungary are working.

"It's not just a case of this making the car faster for the rest of this season, it's also having the knowledge that we understand our platform and know how to develop it.

"A journalist who, perhaps, hadn't been looking at the context, asked me if we were still lost," Krack revealed. "I replied that lost implies you don't know where you are, don't know what to do. We know the updates are working, so we we're not lost. Had the updates not worked, then, we'd have been lost, because that would imply we didn't understand our car very well."

But was being lost a possibility? Krack explains: "It certainly plays on your mind because our update prior to Hungary didn't deliver as much as we expected, but because these latest updates do work, I have the confidence to say we are going in the right direction. We've taken a new approach with the car and are making progress now.

"From an engineering point of view, I can see the light. I have trust in our engineering, in our performance development, in our aerodynamic development.

"We're on the right path, and we'll have a better second half of the season. I'm not normally that bold with pronouncements but we know what we have," he insisted.

As for the rest of the season which starts after the summer break at the Dutch Grand Prix, the Aston Martin Team Principal declared more upgrades are in the pipeline, keeping 2025 in mind as well.

He said: "There are more updates planned on the AMR24 in the second half of the season before everything moves to our 2025 car.

"We need to be realistic, considering the gaps to the front and the gaps behind. We’re not giving up on 2024, but 2025 will soon come into focus.

"Work on this year's car is very important though because it's this that gives us direction for next year. There's a lot of carry-over with stable regulations, and whatever we learn now, we take into 2025," Krack concluded.

Aston Martin are currently fifth in the 2024 F1 Constructors' Championship with 73 points a whopping 193 points behind Mercedes who are fourth.