Aston Martin team principal will be 'surprised' if other F1 teams don't copy its new rear wing at high-downforce tracks

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack believes that the team's new rear wing will be copied by the time F1 reaches the next high downforce circuit. According to Krack, he would be surprised if the innovation on the rear wing that the team brought to the Hungaroring, especially for the high downforce circuits, is not copied by other teams.

Speaking to the media about the innovation the team had on its rear wing, Krack said:

"The next high downforce races are Netherlands and Singapore. I will be surprised if we are the only ones in Singapore racing with this idea. We have made quite good progress over all these races."

When questioned about where he felt Aston Martin's main weakness lay, Mike Krack revealed the bigger issue was in the high-speed corners. He said:

"I think our main weakness, you see it when you look at tracks like Silverstone or Austria, when you have high-speed corners, we struggle. We have seen it [in Hungary qualifying] for example, the wind was changing and all the high-speed parts at the back, we were quite a bit worse than on the Friday or maybe others were better than on Friday. So from that point of view, we need to work on the aerodynamics but we can still improve this car, yes."

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Aston Martin: We respect Sebastian Vettel's decision to retire!

Aston Martin had made its intentions clear that it wanted to continue its association with Sebastian Vettel, but the German opted to retire from the sport instead of continuing to drive for the team. Speaking about Vettel's decision, Mike Krack revealed that the team respects the four-time world champion's decision to retire from the sport as it was quite obvious there were things beyond the sport he had started to find interest in.

He said:

"He says 'I don't know anything else,' but he has, on the other hand, his family, other interests that when you are 35, it is different to when you are 20. You also have to be brave to take such a decision and from that point of view, it was going to come, it was just a question of when. He is a human being with feelings, opinions and a family. For a while, this was in his head."

Having said that, the Aston Martin team principal did reveal things could have been different if the car had been more competitive in the first half of the season. He said:

"Probably, if he had won the first nine or 10 races, he would have maybe delayed his decision but ultimately, I think this was something that was already going on in his mind for a long while. Now he has made his decision, yeah, this is how it is and we need to respect it."

Fernando Alonso will replace Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin for the next season. Only time will tell if the new partnership will be successful.