Aston Martin
CAR ASTON MARTIN AMR22 ENGINE MERCEDES M13
With many internal changes brought about by Lawrence Stroll, will Aston Martin be able to take greater steps up the championship ladder? Let’s not forget that, as Racing Point, the team was a race winner and had the third fastest car in 2020 before the aero rule tweaks hurt its Mercedesinspired low-rake concept. That should no longer be an issue thanks to the regulation changes.
Aston Martin has a known driver pairing in Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll and, with many common parts from Mercedes, the team should be a lot more confident of good results once it understands the AMR22.
The launch was at least done with the actual car, complete with flashing strobe lighting and a group of the team’s actual sponsors, plus sensible contributions from the drivers and technical chief Andy Green. When the car ran later that same day,
completing a shakedown at Silverstone, it did look as though it was sporting a different frontwing assembly.
Both drivers sampled the car on day one at Barcelona, with Vettel taking over for the afternoon, and he benefited from the set-up work laid down by his team-mate as he ended up sixth fastest. On the last day further progress was made and he ended up fifth quickest, enough for seventh overall from the three days. Vettel looked competitive before a mechanical problem caused him to spin and caused a fire, which he helped to put out.
In Bahrain, Aston Martin didn’t seem to go for a glory run, as many teams did, so ended up quite a long way down the timesheets. It’s likely that the team is more competitive than that and should once again be fighting in the midfield – though it seems we are saying that about most of the squads this season!