This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
My point being that the team is essentially new, their results are going to be hit-or-miss.
The team used to be better than this though.
I agree it will take further time for the new hirings to integrate themselves fully into the team and contribute according to their potential.
But I also agree to the above that the current performance is just embarrasing. Was thinking of just that while watching the race - how their current performance reflects on the Aston Martin brand.
They are absolutely nowhere and are among the cars that are regularly off track, spun and in the gravel trap.
I have no expectations of Lance Stroll, he is who he is.
But Vettel? What on earth is he doing. He is nowhere close to driving like a 4x champion. He's just going through the motions, filling a seat in the sport. He should've stopped serval years ago. He's inconsistent and crash prone. I wish they'd taken Bottas or campained for Alonso.
If he still had that ability, he'd still be at Ferrari.
That by itself isn't gonna solve thier problem. They need to figure it out and they might have to create test peices to figure it out. It's not like they're gonna restart from scatch again with a completelt different design. They also may not REALLY have a problem. They may just not have a driver that can lead this thing. Right now, it has to be Vettel and I'm not sure he's up to it. Lance takes the term "pay driver" to a whole new level. I think Lance, being the owner of the team, isn't going anywhere. That and he's isn't a bad number 2. I think if you have a good number 1, he could drag Stroll up the charts. If I were them, I'd go after Alonso before Alpine sign him. I think a 3 years contract might sway him. They seem to be building a very good technical team, they stole another 2 guys from RBR just receintly.
I would watch an entire season of Lawrence Stroll and Fernando Alonso having a go at each other.
Yes, they keep hiring people; I suppose that's good, but they have arguably the most talented design and engineering group that this team has ever had, they have more budget than they've ever had, and yet the 2021 and 2022 cars are the worst cars this team has produced in a decade (or more). Something does not make sense. Clearly the marketing department is doing their job; because they have a number of substantial sponsors, especially compared to who they typically are racing on Sunday. As for everyone else? I don't want to speculate but clearly something is amiss.
There has been alot of movement. The 8 people or so they took from RBR haven't been there six months, let alone a year. Think you got to give it till next year at this time to re-evaluate. Then again if it's a driver problem, it will never get better. I mean, replace Lando with Lance at McLaren and how much worse will that car look?
'They didn't call me by name, it was brownie or n*****' - Formula 1 worker reveals racist abuse
Aidan Louw, 25, claims the abuse started almost immediately with racist nicknames when he joined Aston Martin's F1 team.
Tom Parmenter Sports correspondent @TomSkyNews
Friday 15 July 2022 17:18, UK
A Formula 1 worker who was repeatedly called the n-word by colleagues at the Aston Martin F1 team has told Sky News more needs to be done to confront racism in motorsport.
Aidan Louw, 25, who is mixed race and was born in South Africa, worked as a laminator building parts of the cars driven by Sebastian Vettel at the prestigious F1 team's base next to Silverstone.
The abuse started after he joined the team as a supplier's agency contractor this February.
"Before I even walked into my working environment that's when I was told 'look if you've got a problem with how we speak here, it's just how we speak'."
Mr Louw claims the abuse then started almost immediately with racist nicknames.
"It went from brownie to darkie - I wasn't referred to as Aidy…or anything like that. I was called n** n** and brownie - that is what I was referred to.
"It had taken me shift cycle after shift cycle of abuse after abuse, words going from n** n** and brownie to outright n***** when I am being called a n***** that's where I draw the line, that's where I go no."
As a dual citizen of both South Africa and the UK, Aidan holds two passports. He says the abuse included an apartheid era insult that is also extremely offensive.
On top of the racism Aidan also suffered homophobic abuse: "I disclosed to someone that I had a boyfriend in my teen years and that was it - in that split second everything switched…
"As soon as they found out about that sliver of information that was it, they were trying to claw me down to break me down as a man, as an individual and a human."
This is absolutely shocking behaviour, and certainly doesnt follow on well from the Piquet incident a few weeks back which recently come to light.
Hopefully we will see drivers, again, making a stand against this behaviour
Hopefully the people in the team that were behaving that way will be sacked if it shown that the allegations are true. There is no excuse for that sort of behaviour.
If I as a boringly conventional, middle aged, white guy had been working in a place like that and heard that sort of language, I'd have been talking to management about it from the first moment. And I've have been telling the small-minded, mouth breathing knuckle-draggers to shut their mouths and wind their necks in.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
This disgusting behaviour from within the team also, to me at least, undermined their entire reaction to recent events. And I seriously doubt that AM are the only team with issues such as this. Think I remember some Merc staff getting fired for islamophobia and racist comments a few years back. Same with RB staff too. Seems like a very long way to go for F1 round.
This disgusting behaviour from within the team also, to me at least, undermined their entire reaction to recent events. And I seriously doubt that AM are the only team with issues such as this. Think I remember some Merc staff getting fired for islamophobia and racist comments a few years back. Same with RB staff too. Seems like a very long way to go for F1 round.
The fact that we at least heard about those instances at Mercedes and Red Bull means that 1. there where consequences to such behavior, and 2: the teams made an example of it and made sure everybody fully know that it was not accepable in any way.
In those cases I think it reflected poorly on those indiviuals but well on the teams who took action. If no action is taken and everything gets silenced, then that reflects poorly on the team. So lets see what happens at Aston Martin.
I really do hope F1 (and other UK based) journalists follow up on this, because it clearly seems to be a lot more than just a 'few bad eggs' at the team (and Matt Bishop as well as Vettel are hopefully asking questions internally too).
Sorry to see an 18 year old lose their lives in a road accident (that's what RTA stands for right?), good of the team to do something for him (but, it's also a stark contrast to the more difficult issue mentioned above, isn't it), terrible for the parents family, friends and close colleagues.
Vettel's comment(after 2 practice sessions yesterday ), 'I went a little faster than I did yesterday in the 100-year-old car! ' ; sums up the car performance.Race pace might be slightly better but the qualifying pace is dead last.
Just from curiosity I made quick comparison between AMR and fastest qualification times. If qualification was on dry I just picked fastest time of qualification and fastest AMR time but if qualification was on rain then I picked the times from same quali session.
On the graph event number is on top. Blue line is fastest quali time. Green line is percentage difference to between AMR and fastest time. Vertical line is b-spec.
As conclusion I would say that we have developed at about same pace than fastest car but haven't done any catch-up.
Last edited by liuzka on 25 Jul 2022, 20:34, edited 2 times in total.
No words, 18 years old. 