The Spanish Grand Prix was to be the turning point for Sebastian Vettel and Aston Martin. But the plan failed miserably. Instead of hope and confidence, there was anger and disappointment. The rest of the Formula 1 season could become a real nightmare for the Heppenheimer and his team.
The Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona is more than just an ordinary race for the Formula 1 teams. On the 4.675 kilometers of the Circuit de Catalunya, the cars will be put through their paces as a complete package for the first time this season. The track layout gives the teams more answers than other circuits: How does the car behave in slow corners? Like in fast corners? How on the straight? How about braking and how about accelerating out? Finding all of this out at just 4,675 meters is priceless.
At the same time, Barcelona is the place where major updates are brought to the track for the first time in a season. There are other reasons for this in addition to the special characteristics of the course: the teams have had enough time before the race in Spain to thoroughly analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their own car and the cars of the competition, and to develop and produce new parts. In addition, in almost all cases, your own factory is just a stone’s throw away. This saves costs and enables a quick response if parts need to be replaced or delivered later.
All of this makes Barcelona a place of hope for Formula 1 teams. Hope new parts work. Hope that the gap to the competition will be reduced or the lead increased. And the hope that the season will be a success. This is where Aston Martin and Sebastian Vettel come in. Because for them, that hope vanished into thin air on the Circuit de Catalunya.
Aston Martin has fallen behind despite updates
Aston Martin, as the biggest “underperformer” of the 2022 season, brought perhaps the most radical updates to Barcelona. The team was once again inspired by the competition. In 2020 and 2021, the bolide was surprisingly similar to the Mercedes, and in 2022 the Red Bull think tank was used. The FIA did not see this as a direct violation of the rules, but the further developed AMR22 by Sebastian Vettel in Barcelona was already described as the “green Red Bull” mocked.
Vettel and Co. then found out the hard way that concepts from other teams cannot be transferred 1:1. In qualifying, Heppenheimer and teammate Lance Stroll failed in Q1. The four-time world champion couldn’t hide his frustration. “Everyone else took a clearer step forward, while we stopped a bit or even fell back,” Vettel raised the alarm. Stroll was also annoyed and complained: “We were just miles away from the pace.”
Vettel complains about Aston Martin’s “Formula 2 pace”.
It didn’t get any better in the race on Sunday either. Vettel’s eleventh place was significantly better than the performance of the “new” AMR22. The German summarized on the radio: “Grateful for eleventh place, but that was tough. In terms of speed, it was pretty boring. The car was difficult to drive.”
In the subsequent interviews, too, the four-time world champion didn’t mince his words and relentlessly settled accounts with his car. “We are dependent on our car. I had a good car most of the time and not at the moment,” he said.
Vettel did not want to blame the team itself or individuals. The 34-year-old praised the effort and work that went into the AMR22. The Heppenheim native could not and did not want to hide the fact that the result of this work is devastating. “In the race we were running with the qualifying pace of Formula 2,” he made a devastating verdict.
Aston Martin experiences the “worst case”
What remains for Aston Martin after the Barcelona days are helplessness, disappointment and anger. The team has put its resources into developing new parts that obviously don’t work (yet). In addition to money, the team also lost time. The fact that the AMR22 was “reverse engineered” at the same time, as Vettel put it, is the “worst case” so often cited.
Aston Martin still have 16 races to turn the proverbial rudder this season. But that’s not much more than a straw. The team in Barcelona put its cards on the table. The racing team will not win anything with this hand. What that means for the rest of the season remains to be seen. But the prognosis could hardly be bleaker.
Christian Schenzel