Aston Martin will have to come up with a “performance structure” to convince four-time Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel to stay until the end of the season, the team’s new captain Mike Krack has said.
Vettel, the 53-time race winner, who joined the team from Ferrari in 2021, is out of contract at the end of the year and has said his future will depend on whether the year’s Aston Martin challenger Can 2022 put him back on the winning path?
Krack, who was once BMW’s racing chief who replaced Otmar Szafnauer, told reporters during his first press conference with reporters: “It’s clear that someone like Sebastian, the four-time world champion , he doesn’t want to be 15th or 12th or 8th.
“Our mission was to provide a show car, or say, a performance structure because I think Sebastian is a smart guy.
“He’s not going to just focus on this year’s car or anything but more on what’s happening and if he sees the potential,” he told the videoconference.
Krack worked with Vettel at BMW-Sauber, where Vettel made his Formula One debut in 2007.
Krack was also Vettel’s engineer when the German made his first appearance at the Grand Prix weekend driving for the Swiss team during Friday’s practice at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix.
Vettel has since won four titles, winning consecutive titles with Red Bull from 2010-2013.
His total wins are second only to Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.
However, he has not won since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix when he was still at Ferrari.
Aston Martin finished seventh out of 10 teams on last year’s overall standings but the team’s billionaire owner, Lawrence Stroll, has big ambitions and has laid out a five-year plan for a successful championship.
The 2022 season, which will feature F1’s biggest overhaul of the rules in decades, is the second year of that plan.
Krack admits that such schemes do not always work out.
But he cites Aston Martin’s lean management structure, which has former McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh as chief executive at the top, as a strength.
The team must avoid falling into the “corporate” way of doing things, he said.
“The way we split the tasks at the moment, we’re quick, we’re flexible, and we can react faster than others,” he said.
“At this stage, we have everything that we need.”
