Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack has concluded that the car “has potential” after its first week of testing in Bahrain, but plenty of work remains as the team is already running behind schedule.
The 2026 Formula 1 season brings a substantial change in regulations, but the Silverstone outfit sees more change than some on the grid as it welcomes Honda into the factory and Adrian Newey into the role of team principal. Unfortunately, while expectations have been high, it hasn’t been plain sailing for the team as they’ve battled numerous issues.
In fact, driver Lance Stroll believes the car could be “four seconds off the top team”. The Canadian finished day three of testing 15th on a timesheet consisting of 17 cars, faster only than Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.
“I think the main thing that we learned this week is that we have a lot of work to do,” Krack conceded. “We have a new car, a new package, a new partner or new partners and we need to integrate everything. So there is a lot of work that is ahead of us and we had to learn this week that we are not at the level as others are maybe.”
There is, however, a silver lining to his week: “But I think the package has potential and we need to work hard to unleash it.”
With Newey fighting for a tightly packaged power unit, the team started its season on the back foot with it not even having the time to paint its machinery.
“The most important is first to get going,” Krack continued. “Before we completely developed the car, it was important that we hit the track in Barcelona. Even if it was a bit on the early side, we had a lot of small little issues that you have to debug and it takes time.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images
“So I think once we have that, once we get going properly, we can analyse the car, analyse the weaknesses, analyse improvement potentials and then I’m quite sure that we can make big steps going forward.”
Is Aston Martin at the level of performance they’d want to be at this stage?
“It is always difficult to say. The hope is something that in Formula 1 you cannot really base on. You have to stay with the facts. We came here and we had a first taste and we need to realise that we have some more work to do.”
He continued: “Barcelona was really a shakedown and we realised, as I said, that we need to do more work and you have to prioritise them now and say what are the things that we need to do first. Solve first for next week.
“There’s not much time,” he warned. “We have to acknowledge that. But then, yeah, I think we will set the proper priority list and start to work them over and we will be in a better place next week.”
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