Aston Martin revealed their disappointment with the 2021 rules, saying the aero modifications messed their season up.
High rake teams like Mercedes and Aston Martin were given the hard end of the stick when the FIA made alterations to the aero rules. As a result, they were slowed down for 2021, with the changes benefitting their low rake counterparts.
While Mercedes managed to win the Constructors’ Championship, the former Racing Point fared much worse. They could only manage a P7 in the race, and could not stay competitive in the midfield.
With the season over, Aston Martin revealed their disappointment with the 2021 rules, and gave the reasons for the same.
As quoted by motorsport.com, team principal Otmar Szafnauer said, “What’s happened this year confirmed our pre-season worries that the unilateral aerodynamic changes that were made late in the season had a massive effect on us and Mercedes.
“Because the midfield was so tight, the lap time that we lost – seven, eight, nine-tenths of a second per lap, depending on what track we were at – moved us from the third-fastest car to about the sixth, seventh-fastest car.
“With Mercedes, they too lost because of the aerodynamic philosophy they run, but that just moved them from always being on pole to now fighting for the championship.
“For us, I think it had a much, much bigger impact, and because of it, and because of the ’22 regulations being completely different, we had to switch early on to focus all of our attention on ’22 and leave ’21 at that time.”
Focus shift
“We did have a big development programme early on in ’21 to try and claw back some of the aero deficit that was put upon us,” he continued.
“We tried that early on, but we had to stick to our plan to switch over, because otherwise, you have a mediocre year this year, and then not have the optimal year that we should be having next year.
“So we made a conscious effort to switch over, as painful as it was.”
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