There is no time of year like the one in which we find ourselves to go and take stock of the 365 days we have lived. And, if you work in a Formula 1 team, “balance sheet” often rhymes with “performance and results on the track”.
Who had started 2021 with high expectations and the will to excel, with the strength of a valid 2020, was undoubtedly Aston Martin. The Silverstone team, which had become a real factory team able to take advantage of the name of a glorious manufacturer, replaced Racing Point, hiring ex Ferrari Sebastian Vettel in place of the outgoing Sergio Perez.
The season, however, turned out to be a half disaster. The seventh place as a team represents a major disappointment for those who, in 2020, had finished fourth behind Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren.
Through Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal Aston Martin, the new aerodynamic rules introduced for the year just ended are in no uncertain terms.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
“What happened this year confirms our concerns at the start of the season: a unilateral revision of the regulations has had a major impact on us and Mercedes, with a series of changes being made in the course of 2020,” he tells Motorsport. .com Szafnauer.
“The center line package was really compact and hitting regulation areas where we were strong made us slide from being the third fastest car to being sixth-seventh, making us lose about eight to nine tenths per lap.”
“Mercedes also lost a lot of their advantage due to the aerodynamic philosophy with which their cars were built, but they were able to react and fight for the two championships. For us, however, the situation was decidedly worse: with regulatory changes so important for 2022, we soon had to divert attention and work for next year, abandoning the ’21 plan very soon ”, continues Szafnauer.
What the manager refers to, as we have explained in this article, is the fact that the regulatory changes applied during construction in mid-2020 have, on balance, penalized the cars without the famous rake set-up, that is single-seaters not tilted. at the front, consequently favoring those who have made this philosophy their trademark, Red Bull first and foremost.
“We had an initial development program to fill the gap towards the top teams – continues Szafnauer – but we soon abandoned everything. On some tracks we had good downforce, but as soon as we changed track the situation turned for the worse for us. We have suffered this situation not a little ”, concludes the Team Principal.
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