Aston Martin head to this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix in desperate need of a result, something that will bring some light to an exciting project that simply has not lived up to expectations, nevertheless Lance Stroll is aiming for points on Sunday.
It will be a tough ask as the transition from being ‘have-nots’ to ‘have-everythings’ has been painful even for neutrals. Powered by Mercedes Aston Martin should at least be where McLaren are fighting, or at most showing winning credentials as they did last year.
Instead, the Green cars are the meat in the sandwich between the bottom of the midfield and the backmarkers. Hence they head to Monaco, after four rounds, with only five points on the board thanks to a couple of low scoring races at the start of the season. Since then they are struggling to get a sniff of the top ten.
But Stroll junior is confident as he heads to Monte Carlo: “It was a shame not to be able to race at Monaco last year, so I’m really excited we’re returning this year. We know we need to keep pushing hard to find improvements, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
“With such a tight battle in the midfield, anything can happen – especially at a place like this. If we execute our weekend strongly, we’ll be aiming for the points,” explained Stroll.
Teammate Vettel, who is still searching for his long lost form as ell as a comfort-zone in the Mercedes powered car; he said in the team’s Monte Carlo preview: “There’s a long season ahead, and the new parts we ran in Barcelona felt like an improvement and are helping us to move forward.
“The goal is to build on that in Monte-Carlo. We know that our race pace has often been stronger than our single-lap pace, so we’ll be focusing extra hard on that all-important qualifying performance this weekend.
“I’m excited for the challenge of Monaco – there’s no other track like it,” added Vettel, echoing a statement that all drivers are likely to make during the course of the weekend on the streets.
A stat worth noting is that after four rounds of the F1 constructors’ title race last year, Racing Point (Aston Martin now) were fifth in the standings with 42 points. They got better as the season progressed and went on to finish fourth in the 2020 standings.