Lance Stroll has hailed Aston Martin for having made “huge progress” over recent years, with the team having successfully gotten themselves out of a “hole” at the start of last year.
The Silverstone-based team were arguably the most improved team of 2022, after starting the year towards the foot of the table.
The side really struggled in the opening rounds of the season, before making some progress towards the midfield after introducing effectively a new car at the Spanish Grand Prix, dubbed the ‘green Red Bull’.
Aston Martin continued to make huge steps towards the likes of Alpine and McLaren towards the end of the season, with Sebastian Vettel and Stroll having been able to score points much more consistently.
READ: This is how you can watch Lewis Hamilton’s first-ever podcast
Whilst they missed out on sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, the future looks very bright for the team.
With their new factory nearing completion, plus the addition of Fernando Alonso and several world-class employees, 2023 could be a very positive year for Aston Martin.
Stroll believes the team, formerly known as Racing Point, has “evolved” over the years, with the side having come a long way since being known by their former name.
“I think the team has evolved a lot,” he told Motorsport.com.
“At the factory, with the way that things are done, and how the car’s developed, I think a couple of years ago, we would have been in a much more difficult position to dig ourselves out of the hole that we were in at the beginning of the year.
“Now, I think big changes were made. We had a fully different car in Barcelona, and then upgrades from there. Then, all of a sudden, we find ourselves in some races in a much better position than before.
“I don’t think that we would have been in that position a couple of years ago, to dig ourselves out of that hole. So, I think in that sense, we’ve made huge progress.
“The whole approach as a team, we’re bonding much better than we used to in the past.
“I think we’re integrating much better than in the past. And I think back at the factory, the whole work ethic, communication, the way that everything is done, I think we’ve come a long way from where we were as Racing Point.”
Looking ahead to 2023, Stroll wants the British outfit to focus on consistency, with the performance of the AMR22 having yo-yoed from circuit to circuit.
“We became much more competitive during the season, and we put ourselves in a position at many races to fight for points and challenging to get into Q3, and all those things where we were just not even close to that at the beginning of the year,” Stroll added.
“In that regard, it’s been really positive. But we still have those odd races, like, going from Austin to Mexico, one week later, where we were probably the fourth-fastest team, I would say in Texas before we had all our issues, to the ninth/tenth-fastest team in Mexico. And then in Sao Paulo, again, we were somewhere in the middle.
READ: Toto Wolff opens up on joining Mercedes
“I think we still have those weekends where we kind of don’t know why we’re not, for whatever reason, as competitive as other weekends. We have ideas but we are not 100 percent sure.
“I think that, going forward, that has to be the target: to be more competitive more often at different kinds of tracks: high efficiency, low downforce, high downforce. I guess that’s the focus.
“But when I look at where we came from at the beginning of the year, I think it’s been a big step in the right direction.”