Aston Martin had a slow start to the season, failing to score points in each of the first three races – with Vettel missing two of those races due to Covid-19, and Nico Hulkenberg filling in.
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Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack has stated that it would be “foolish” for his team not to try to extend Sebastian Vettel’s current contract beyond the end of this season. Vettel, however, would need to see “progress” from the team in order to want to stay with the team in green, according to Krack. Aston Martin had a slow start to the season, failing to score points in each of the first three races – with Vettel missing two of those races due to Covid-19, and Nico Hulkenberg filling in. At Imola, however, the Silverstone team showed signs of improvement, with Vettel and Lance Stroll finishing eighth and tenth, respectively.
Vettel’s contract with Aston Martin is set to expire at the end of the 2022 season, with the four-time champion saying at Imola that his future would be determined by how this year went and then taken from there. And, given that the comments came from a 53-time race winner who didn’t want to fight for P18 or P16, Krack said he understood them.
“I’m not going to speak on contracts yet but obviously if you have a driver like Sebastian Vettel that you can keep motivated by giving him the car that he deserves with the quality of his driving, I think you would be foolish not to try to retain him,” said Krack. “But I 100% understand his comments.”
“He wants to see progress; he wants to see the car moving forward because he is not a driver that wants to fight for P18 or P16 or whatever. So I fully understand his comments and it is up to us to deliver the tools that are needed for him to perform.”
Working with Vettel as his race engineer at BMW Sauber when he was 19 years old was a “pleasure,” according to Krack, who praised the former Ferrari driver’s “high work ethic.”
Asked what had impressed him particularly about Vettel’s approach, Krack replied: “Well, everything. He has a very, very competitive approach, despite the big success that he was already having. He has a very high work ethic that I really share and that I already appreciate.”
“There is no time of the day where it is too late to work or to have some input. So, from that point of view, it’s a pleasure to work with him, because first of all, he is what I described already but then also he’s a nice guy, he’s a nice fellow and he understands where our limitations are at the moment. But he doesn’t stop pushing and he is realistic about what we do, so it’s a matter of trying to merge what we think we [have to] do and what he thinks we have to do and be open, transparent, have good conversations and move on,” Krack added.
