Aston Martin thankful Alonso and Stroll didn’t “slam us down”

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has expressed his gratitude towards his drivers after they mostly refrained from hitting out at their car’s lack of performance in the media.

2024 was a noticeably poorer season for the Silverstone-based squad after a 2023 campaign when Fernando Alonso was a regular podium contender.

Aston Martin’s best result last year was Alonso’s fifth-place finish in Saudi Arabia. The Spaniard’s 70 points and team-mate Lance Stroll’s tally of 24 sufficed to secure fifth position in the constructors’ championship – albeit a world away from fourth-placed Mercedes's total of 468 points.

Revealing his highlight of the year, Krack said he was thrilled that his drivers have remained somewhat positive despite their struggles.

“The highlight is for me the drivers and how they have coped with this, how they have stuck to the team,” Krack told Autosport in an end-of-season interview.

“It would be so easy for them to go in the media and slam us down, because for them it's the most difficult. Week in, week out, they drive it and they cannot change the car. They have to drive it and they have all the microphones in front of them. And they have always stuck with the team. So, for me, that is actually a big highlight.”

Stroll suggested back in June that “it's amazing to see how far” the team has come since the Racing Point era and he’s “definitely here for the future”.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Alonso in particular has a history of calling his team out for bad performance, not least when with McLaren during its ill-fated partnership with Honda last decade.

Speaking in September last year, the two-time champion said: “As a team, we could accept not being in the top four battle – they are top teams and they are well in front of us. But now to be behind Williams, behind Haas, behind [RB], I think we need to raise the bar a little bit.”

However, the two-time world champion is also proving realistic.

“In Formula 1 there are not many miracles – you need to be patient,” he pointed out. As a consequence, he’s finding solace in the promise of better days to come with the 2026 technical regulatory overhaul.