Sebastian Vettel: Aston Martin have ‘found a way to go racing’ with AMR22

While pouring cold water on the significance of testing times, Sebastian Vettel believes Aston Martin have found a strong racing setup.

The Aston martin team have a five-year plan to reach the summit of Formula 1, with the 2022 campaign, the start of an all-new regulatory era, serving as the key foundation for the Silverstone squad to work towards their title ambitions.

Aston Martin are coming into 2022 off the back of a difficult season last time out, when aerodynamic regulation changes hampered their car, meaning they could manage only P7 in the Constructors’ standings.

But 2022 is a fresh start and though Vettel finished P10 on the final day of the Bahrain pre-season test, he feels positions are irrelevant and instead it was about Aston Martin running through their programme.

And after doing so, he reckons that Aston Martin have found a good racing window for the AMR22.

“I think it is a bit irrelevant the positions today,” he told reporters after the third and final day.

“They don’t mean anything by next week.

“We ran through our programme which is good, we did a lot of laps in the afternoon, it was the first time I was in the afternoon session, the track was very different, so overall I’m happy.

“P10 or not, I think I’m happy that we’ve had a lot of work the last couple of weeks and it looks like we’ve found a way that we can go racing and now we will see next week where we are.”

Red Bull cranked up the lap times to finish the Bahrain test with comfortably the fastest time, a 1:31.720 courtesy of Max Verstappen, but more so than in the past years, it felt like the teams were not yet showing their hand when it came to the ultimate performance of their challengers.

From his observations, Vettel believes up to three teams will form the early leading pack, with a big, largely equal group behind.

The question is, where do Aston Martin reside within that pack?

 

“I don’t think we are the fastest and the favourites at this point, but it’s a long season,” said four-time World Champion Vettel.

“And it’s interesting because at this stage nobody really knows where they are.

“I think probably there are one or two or three teams a little bit ahead, and then there seems to be a big group with everybody else more or less in the same performance level.

“So let’s see where exactly we are, but it could be close in that big group.”

 

 

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