Aston Martin must "protect" drivers as it braces to "hang on" without F1 updates

Aston Martin says it must “protect” its drivers as the Formula 1 team braces for a long wait before significant upgrades arrive, according to chief trackside officer Mike Krack.

Despite suffering a nightmare start to the 2026 season, Aston Martin is not planning to bring any major upgrades until the summer break. Instead, the team, together with new engine partner Honda, has focused on solving the reliability problems that have plagued the AMR26. 

After some encouraging signs of progress saw Aston Martin record its first double finish of the campaign in Miami, the team is looking to improve its performance by maximising its current package.

“It’s quite good, actually,” Krack told media including Crash.net ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix when asked how is motivation within the team.

“The drivers are the ones that need to be protected the most, because you ask them the same question every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then the week after again Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

“So for them it’s most difficult to be repetitive and give you each time the same response. I said it in Shanghai already, we need to protect the drivers from that, because they accumulate that frustration being at the back of the field.

“As far as the team is, we are aware of the situation and together with our partner, we sat together at an early stage and we defined the steps we would have to take to improve.

“We need to take big steps and in Formula 1 you do not take big steps during the season. So you have to motivate yourself by making progress from race-to-race and then at the end of the season you can zoom out and say ‘what did we achieve?’.

“But it is also a fact that we are in a world where you have to say improvement, improvement, improvement, or upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. If you do not see them with big steps or outcome on results, people get frustrated. So it is about managing that and managing that situation.

“We will have a high frequency of races now into the European season. We will have to hang on there. We had a meeting with the team this morning and the spirit is very good, because we are honest about the situation, we are aware and we discuss it.

“For us the spirit is very strong, but for the drivers it is very difficult because they are the most exposed.”

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso said he expects Aston Martin’s ongoing struggles to feel “repetitive” due to the same questions being asked in media interviews over the upcoming stretch of races.

Asked by Crash.net how painful the next bulk of events could be before major upgrades arrive, Krack replied: “There’s no point being frustrated and running around with long faces. We have a job to do trackside and we have to get the maximum out of the package we have.

“If that is the situation you are in, you have to acknowledge it and work with it. There’s no point running around here like beaten dogs, it will not change anything. So I think it is much more important that we keep the motivation high.

“Also you need to have this routine of going racing, of performing at your best and being professional. I have to say credit to everyone.

“It does go unnoticed behind the result or outcome, but I think the collaboration, for example around the Miami weekend, was very strong in terms of how we handled different situations with the tyres, with the cooling and so on. There are positives, but at the moment they are hidden in the outcome.”