Aston Martin’s eye-catching new rear wing design doesn’t appear to brought a significant improvement in the car’s performance, says Lance Stroll.
While team mate Sebastian Vettel was eliminated in Q1, Stroll progressed to the next round and claimed a place on the seventh row of the grid. “That’s not what we want, to finish 14th in Q2,” he said afterwards.Aston Martin was one of several teams to bring a new rear wing design for the Hungaroring, a track which requires maximum downforce. Its unusual endplates attracted the attention of rival teams and questions over whether it was a departure from the designs F1 hoped teams would produce under the 2022 technical regulations.
Stroll said it was “too early to say” how of a difference the new rear wing had made, but admitted that “in terms of position very similar to where we normally are.
“So I would say no, it doesn’t look like it’s the step that we need to really challenge the top of the midfield for getting into Q3. We’ve just got to keep pushing.”
Vettel ended second practice inside the top 1 and ran well in final practice before crashing. “I think yesterday we looked more competitive.” said Stroll, “we just didn’t have enough grip today.
“We’re half a second to six-tenths off being in Q3 – just scraping into Q3, which is not where we want to be.”
He is doubtful the team will be able to make significant gains in the race. “It’s a bit of a track position race here, so it’s tricky,” he said. “But maybe some interesting weather tomorrow, you never know. We’ll see what we can do.”
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Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
30th July 2022, 20:06
Good for Lance – I hear he dresses himself too.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
30th July 2022, 22:11
It’s seldomly a good sign when a team lacking performance attaches its hopes to a gimmick of one kind or the other.
AlanD
31st July 2022, 0:07
@proesterchen But isn’t that what all teams do? How many times have we heard Merc or Red Bull or Ferrari say they have a new wing or a new nose cone which they hope will unlock the potential of the car. I don’t think it is fair to call that a gimmick. It is engineering.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
31st July 2022, 9:39
It’s a gimmick because it’s a novel interpretation of the rules for one part of the car by a team that has significant shortcomings across the board.
I’m not saying it cannot work, Brawn GP is an example of a gimmick being both powerful enough to put a meh car clear of the field and providing enough first-mover advantage to earn the team both Championships.
But for this specific gimmick, the car isn’t even close to meh, the gimmick doesn’t provide enough of an advantage, and any team worth its salt could build a similar interpretation of the rules in relatively short order, once it was revealed.
Dex
30th July 2022, 22:26
I don’t think you’re the first driver they need either, or a driver at all, yet here you are.