According to former F1 team boss Colin Kolles, engineers at Aston Martin are “extremely demoralised” during team owner Lawrence Stroll’s reign.
This comes after Stroll’s plan of fast-tracking a competitive car did not yield any results.
Kolles has recently been shooting arrows at both Stroll and Aston Martin shareholder Toto Wolff.
For instance, he had said that Wolff, who is also the Mercedes boss, is billionaire Stroll’s “lap dog”. He also claimed that Aston Martin hired Sebastian Vettel only to make Lance Stroll look better.
Kolles also said that Lawrence Stroll forced the ‘pink Mercedes’ on the outfit after overruling the team’s technical strategy.
“In the past, the engineers were allowed to develop themselves there. They had little budget, they were very young and efficient, very motivated and in some cases also very innovative,” said Kolles.
“Since Stroll has been in charge, things have changed. And I mean everything.”
The former HRT and Force India boss believes that Stroll’s idea of creating an almost identical copy of the title-winning 2019 Mercedes was something that set them back.
“The engineers actually wanted to build a different car – one with a heavily sloping rear like the Red Bull – because the team had made its cars according to this philosophy for years,” he alleged.
“But Stroll only wanted a copy of the Mercedes because that it seemed like the easiest way for him to achieve his goals. It is my way or no way – that’s Stroll’s mentality.
“He bought everything from Wolff,” Kolles said.
“They are now extremely demoralised and hanging in the air. There is a lot of displeasure in that team now.”
The new 2021 aerodynamic rules being implemented created issues for both Mercedes and Aston Martin. However, only Mercedes was able to adapt to the change.
But when it comes to Aston Martin, “the engineers can’t do anything with a car they didn’t want at all”, Kolles insists.
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