Aston Martin deny claim they may miss the first test in Barcelona

Aston Martin have rubbished a report that their 2022 challenger won’t be on track at the Spanish test, saying “we will be ready”.

Finishing last season a disappointing seventh in the Constructors’ Championship in what was their first season racing under the Aston Martin brand, team owner Lawrence Stroll and his drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, are hoping that this year’s brand new cars will see Aston Martin at least in the fight for best of the rest.

But, according to website thejudge13, all is not well at the former Racing Point outfit.

After Stroll bought the team in 2018 and invested heavily in it, Aston Martin’s workforce has grown – but even that is a problem.

There is said to be “deepening resentment” in the factory following the departure of Otmar Szafnauer, who was replaced by Mike Krack, while a source told the publication said that the “modest, but efficient workforce” has grown to a “far larger entity of what appears to be ‘headless chickens’”.

And that has impacted the development of the team’s 2022 car.

This year Formula 1 is racing all-new cars, the teams having spent much of last season using all of their resources to understand the new rules.

But, thejudge13’s source claims that the Aston Martin F1 car “is miles behind, to the point if it makes 1st test at Barcelona on Feb 23rd everyone will be so surprised you’ll hear the cheer from outer space.”

That, however, has been denied by Aston Martin.

A spokesman for the team told Speedweek.com: “Work on our 2022 vehicle is making good progress and we will be ready for the first winter test in Barcelona.”

The new cars are expected to take to the track on February 23rd, the opening group shakedown being held behind closed doors at the Circuit de Catalunya.

That three days outing will be followed by the first and only official pre-season test, which will be run at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit from March 10-12.

A week later the season starts with the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Andy Green, the team’s technical officer, believes Aston Martin’s decision to clone Mercedes’ car in 2020, and 2021 given that it was a continuation of the previous season, has shown to be a long-term benefit for the Silverstone team.

“It definitely opened our eyes to new ways of working – new concepts, new ideas,” he told The Race.

“And it has enabled that thinking then to follow through to some degree on the 21’ car but the 2022 car definitely.

“What we did was look at the car and went about working out why that car was significantly quicker than everybody else,” he added.

 

“We did our own learning. There’s no shortcut to doing it. It’s not a copy, it’s developing a solution where you’ve got a rough idea of what you think the answer is, but you’ve still got to get there and it takes a lot of development and a lot of work to understand.”

 

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