Aston Martin’s Struggles a Positive Reminder for 2022
Aston Martin finished the Bahrain Grand Prix in 10th and 15th place. The opening race of the 2021 Formula One season went very differently to the last time they showed up in the desert.
Sergio Perez, now at Red Bull, won the team’s first ever F1 race and Lance Stroll joined him on the podium after coming home in third.
The Racing Point team, as they were called in 2020, were firmly entrenched in a battle with McLaren and Renault in the battle for third place in the Constructors Championship.
The 40 points they earned put them in a great position to claim that third and the team was riding high off the sweet taste of victory.
But fast forward four months and the floor changes as part of the 2021 regulations have seen Aston Martin start on the wrong foot. Team principal Otmar Szafnauer has even claimed that the floor changes were targeted specifically to slow down the low rake cars on the grid — them and Mercedes.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it was pointed out last year by the low-rake runners that this would have a bigger effect than on the high-rake runners,” he said.
“And we were correct. At the time, the regulations were being made this was pointed out.
“Number one, there was never a vote. Number two, there was an indicative vote. So that was just at the technical under committee [working group], that all the technical directors had to have an indicative vote, and three teams voted against it.
“You’ve got to remember only two teams have a low-rake concept. So even one of the high-rake teams voted against it. So nowhere near unanimity. And it wouldn’t have even passed on the eight out of 10 rule. Because three voted against.”
What Szafnauer touches on in that quote, however, is that no one truly knew the impact of the ever so minor rule changes. The initial concept was drawn up by the FIA due to a request from Pirelli to slow down the cars so they could actually design tyres that F1 cars didn’t just chew through in a short number of laps.
Nothing was targeted at any specific team, but for all of the teams. The lap times in Bahrain was that proof. Everyone’s quickest qualifying results were still slower in 2021 than in 2020.
However, what this does show is that there should be renewed optimism in the 2022 regulations.
The changes for 2022 are far greater than those for 2021. The 2021 cars are essentially the natural evolution of the 2020 cars due to the delay of the next generation of rules being pushed out a year.
They were delayed in a bid to save costs during the pandemic. Initially 2020 was supposed to be the final year of this current design of F1 cars.
Initial fears were that the 2020 and 2021 seasons would look very similar. However, the early signs suggest that 2021 has seen some changes in the pecking order.
Red Bull are much closer to Mercedes, perhaps even quicker, and McLaren are now in a battle with Ferrari and Alpha Tauri for third in the Constructors.
Of course, it is still early days and one race doesn’t make a season, but the change in fortunes, both positively and negatively, of this many teams bodes well for next season where the regulation changes will be massive.
If a minor change to the cars can have such an impact on the grid then it shows us that the sweeping changes to next year’s cars could bring huge changes to the natural order.
The last time there was a change this big was for the 2014 season, the beginning of the V6 turbocharged hybrid engine era. Red Bull’s 2010–2013 reign came to a crushing end as Mercedes nailed the new regulations and haven’t stopped winning since.
Mercedes still have every chance of nailing these new regulations once again, but the same could be true of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren or anyone else on the grid.
The incoming spending caps also mean that the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull can’t simply out-spend their rivals to gain a massive advantage either, as has been the case over the last decade.
The opening race of 2021 was grim viewing for Aston Martin, particularly as new driver Sebastian Vettel struggled throughout the weekend — culminating in a collision with Esteban Ocon — but for everyone else the early signs of an exciting season offer F1 fans a renewed reason for optimism both for the year ahead and for the next generation of the sport.
