Mike Krack admitted that the result of the United States Grand Prix was somewhat disappointing for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, particularly as Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel were both running inside the top five at the end of the opening lap.
Stroll’s race ended early after suffering heavy damage following a collision with BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso – ironically the Canadian’s team-mate next season – while Vettel fell away from a near-certain top six finish when he suffered an extremely slow pit stop.
Vettel did make a late race charge to climb from thirteenth to finish on the road, including passing Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen for that position at the penultimate corner on the final lap of the race, and was then promoted to seventh when Alonso was handed a post-race penalty by the stewards.
Krack, the Team Principal at Aston Martin, was pleased with Vettel’s recovery drive at the Circuit of the Americas, but it could and should have been a better scoring day for the team than what transpired.
“Having been third and fifth on lap one, clearly we are disappointed to have come away with only a DNF and a P8,” Krack said prior to Vettel’s promotion to seventh. “But that is racing.
“After the Safety Car that had been triggered by [Valtteri] Bottas’s ‘off’, we were running sixth and seventh, looking set for another good points haul, but then Lance and Fernando made contact, ending Lance’s race, and Sebastian was delayed by a problem with his second pit stop, dropping him to P13.
“Thereafter he launched a great recovery drive that resulted in a fine eighth place, the highlight of which was a tremendous dice with Magnussen on the final lap, which happily went Sebastian’s way.”
Vettel’s seventh place, subject to Alpine’s protest being rejected, means they are only one point behind Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN in the battle for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship with only three races of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season remaining.