Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has admitted that working with Fernando Alonso next season will present something “different” for the side to get to grips with, following the retirement of Sebastian Vettel.
Alonso announced after last season’s Hungarian Grand Prix that he’d be replacing the four-time World Champion at the Silverstone-based team, with the Spaniard having signed a two-year deal, with the option for a third being available.
It means the British team have replaced one World Champion with another, meaning they’ll continue to take advantage of the incredible experience that a World Champion can offer.
Krack knows, though, that both Vettel and Alonso have different cultural backgrounds, something which he believes will make a “big difference”.
READ: Yuki Tsunoda reveals how British food and weather impacted him
“[It will be] different,” Krack told reporters, as quoted by RacingNews365.com.
“They have different backgrounds, one is Latin and the other German and that makes a big difference, but what they have in common is the focus, the focus on improving, the focus on making progress and isolating what makes us progress instead of just being detailed.
“So there are some similarities and some differences.”
Technical director Dan Fallows is excited to see Alonso and current driver Lance Stroll alongside each other in the team, with Fallows praising Stroll for being “very good” at giving the side “good feedback” during a race weekend.
With both Stroll and Alonso having an eye for how to make improvements to a car, Aston Martin should be able to develop their 2023 challenger very nicely indeed this season, with Fallows labelling the pair as a “very exciting” pairing.
“I think it is important for the team that we have drivers who from a technical perspective are able to give good feedback, not [just] positive feedback as that’s not always the case,” added Fallows.
“Good feedback for us is [a driver being] able to describe how they’re feeling in the car, and that is very important for us.
“We are very fortunate that Lance [Stroll] is very good in that respect as well.
“I don’t think that in Seb leaving, we were missing anything particularly, but we do want to produce a car which is significantly better for next year.
READ: ‘His head had to be taken off’: Ferrari blasted for Mattia Binotto move
“We want to see that progression and we need to make sure that we have drivers who are able to extract the most out of that.
“Lance is a driver who is able to drive the car, and clearly Fernando has a huge amount of experience and has a proven track record of doing that as well.
“It is a very exciting driver line-up.”