Aston Martin tuning 2021 F1 car to suit Vettel’s ‘less extreme' driving style

Aston Martin technical director Andrew Green says the team has had "no problems” adapting its 2021 F1 car to suit Sebastian Vettel’s driving style.
Aston Martin tuning 2021 F1 car to suit Vettel’s ‘less extreme' driving style

Aston Martin technical director Andrew Green says the team has had "no problems” adapting its 2021 Formula 1 car to suit Sebastian Vettel’s driving style.

Four-time world champion Vettel has joined the rebranded former Racing Point squad to partner Lance Stroll for the upcoming 2021 season following a difficult final few years at Ferrari.

Vettel has replaced new Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, and Green explained that the team has found fine-tuning its AMR21 challenger to the German’s needs has been a straightforward process because his driving style is “less extreme” than Perez’s.

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“He does have his own personal driving style,” Green explained.

“But that’s no different to the driving style we’ve seen from other drivers, and I’d say not as extreme as the driver he’s replacing, who had a very extreme driving style that was very difficult to get right at all tracks. It shone on certain tracks and not on others.

“I think Seb’s style is a lot less extreme, and we have the tools and the capability to tune the car to suit him for sure. We’ve already started working on that, we’ve been working on that on the simulator for the last month and he seems very happy with the direction that we’ve taken, so no problems there.”

And Green is confident Aston Martin can help Vettel get back to his best form.

“We haven’t really got into the where his head was at previously, we’re a team looking forward, but all I can say is he appears incredibly relaxed,” Green said.

"He has integrated into the team very quickly, his contribution started immediately, and I think we’re going to get the best out of Seb, I really do, he’s at the top of his career, he’s there, so I think if we can’t extract the best out of Seb it’s our fault not his. I’m confident we can get Seb in the right place.”

Aston Martin tuning 2021 F1 car to suit Vettel’s ‘less extreme' driving style

Green confirmed that Aston Martin’s AMR21 challenger features a new chassis after the Silverstone-based outfit decided to spend its two development tokens on making a wholesale change, in contrast to most of the teams.

“It was a chassis change but I can’t divulge the reasons why we changed the chassis,” he explained.

"I think for the rear-end and the gearbox is something that had been planned for a long time so we had a lot of warning, we had a lot of data upfront on what the rear end looked like so the integration started relatively early for this car. It wasn’t a shock.

“We had plenty of time to plan for it, plenty of time to develop around it. I’d say we adapted the car to suit. The good thing is it moves us into the direction we wanted to go in anyway which is great.

“We haven’t run the car yet so I can’t say if it’s going to be completely seamless or not but so far it’s been absolutely fine.”

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