Let's talk Aston Martin

[gm99]

What's happened to Aston Martin? How did the wheels come off their very promising start to the season? Can they recover?

Nothing that hasn't happened to smaller teams before. Other teams with bigger resources (especially Mercedes and Ferrari, but also McLaren) have overtaken them. Remember 2009? Brawn won six out of the first seven races, but only two of the last ten, as Red Bull and McLaren caught up.
I don't think they will recover, they'll finish P4 in the constructor's at best, although in their current form McLaren might well overtake them as well by the end of the season.

[airshifter]

Bagwan was the first to point this out.....

Yes, l do get carried away sometimes :-)

Early season results don't mean long term results. In this case the others have done better on upgrades and AM is more towards stagnant in comparison. Combine that with the really big driver difference they have, and they aren't pulling the solid points they need.

Papa Stroll needs to get a new driver soon.

[Bagwan]

AM have been a little distracted of late , completing the building of the home base .
That might have played a role to an extent , but I think they also got caught out by the new tire construction , as Fred has said , at the the same time as trying to figure out how to best use the new package .

As far as Lance goes , the package as it was , and is , hasn't suited him as well as it has his team mate .
He's always been within two or three tenths , and occasionally has been right with him . That seems far more consistent than he's been before .

He now has a guy beside him who is truly mentoring the lad .
Massa , as a mentor , was an absolute failure .
Seb did some better , but owing to the fact the car was a dog , couldn't help much .

He now has the best guy beside him that he could possibly have , so I have faith that the whole shebang will come good , and soon .

Hero Lance , who everybody pictures with an asterisk next to him , starts every race with more pressure than most , and I think he deserves a little more time .

[Nitrodaze]

AM have been a little distracted of late , completing the building of the home base .
That might have played a role to an extent , but I think they also got caught out by the new tire construction , as Fred has said , at the the same time as trying to figure out how to best use the new package .

As far as Lance goes , the package as it was , and is , hasn't suited him as well as it has his team mate .
He's always been within two or three tenths , and occasionally has been right with him . That seems far more consistent than he's been before .

He now has a guy beside him who is truly mentoring the lad .
Massa , as a mentor , was an absolute failure .
Seb did some better , but owing to the fact the car was a dog , couldn't help much .

He now has the best guy beside him that he could possibly have , so I have faith that the whole shebang will come good , and soon .

Hero Lance , who everybody pictures with an asterisk next to him , starts every race with more pressure than most , and I think he deserves a little more time .

We would have to see what Aston Martin brings to the Dutch GP. If it is not competitive enough to beat Mclaren and Mercedes, then they would have squandered their wind tunnel advantages. The upgrades they brought towards the end of the first half of the season seemed to indicate that they have gone down a bad design route which has not translated into performance gain. But has seen the AM cars drift backward into the depth of the midfield. That is so easy to happen as the midfield is so tight this season. A few-tenths loss of relative performance could mean as much as four places drop down the grid.

The second half of this season is about whether AM can recover to the correct or optimum design groove that would set them back on track to claiming the coveted 2nd place ahead of Mercedes and Mcclaren. Or have they decided to abandon this season and focus on the 2024 car as Redbull and Mercedes have done?

They lost their way at some point during the season and could be costly to how well they finish this season or impact how well next season's car turns out.

On Lance Stroll, considering how he started this season, he has done reasonably well. But that does not remove the question of whether some other driver would not be doing better in that car than he is able to produce. Unfortunately, this question is asked of all number two drivers on the grid. By number two, l mean those drivers lagging behind their teammates in points. More so if the gap is significant. Considering the state of the car before the summer break, l don't think Lance has much to worry about.

[Nitrodaze]

We are getting to the point of starting to think about 2024. What would be the most ideal situation to make the grid more excitingly competitive, l asked myself.

The answer that came to mind was to have Alonso in a proper championship-winning car, with Hamilton and Verstappen in equally competitive car from start to end of the 2024 season. What a cracking season that would be. I can dream about this but reality may well be the opposite which is sad really. I think we have all worked out that the Redbull car is the fastest. What we need to find out is, which of these three drivers would come on top in wheel-to-wheel battle in their current form.

Is Verstappen in the same category as Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher? I remain unconvinced but l would dearly love to be proved wrong. Maybe l should say not yet but he could be.

Ps, the 2021 season does not count in my opinion.

[airshifter]

No doubt that Alonso always races hard, and I think he gets better over time. But this was just not the track for the AM, and Singapore is most likely their best chance of being at the top step IMHO. Even that might take some troubles for RB, but I think it's possible with Alonso at the helm.


As for driver comparisons, it's rare that we get more than a year or two here and there with the top drivers all in top cars, and history has proven that there can be ebb and flow even within a top team. The only way to know for sure would be a spec series, and even then certain cars will suit certain driving styles. Though many get involved in the mental gymnastics to always put their favored drivers on top, it's really not worth the time in my view. For all we know the greatest of all time might have been overlooked while in the back of the pack car, after having a poor start to a career, and/or been pushed out by a pay driver. Most of the time there are probably at least 4-5 that could be at the front given equal cars, but we also know that will never happen.