Aston Martin Pre-Season Testing: What we learned from Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll’s initial AMR 22 run in Barcelona
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Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll alongside AMR22
Aston Martin drives into the 2022 season with lots of things to prove following a disappointing 2021 campaign which saw them finish P7 in the constructor’s championship. Sebastian Vettel and Lance stroll hit the Barcelona tracks for testing with the main objective of collective sufficient on-track data on the next generation challengers’ performance.
The words from Aston Martin Performance Director Tom McCullough “The first two days testing in Barcelona was reasonably productive,” sums up how the pre-season testing went for Aston Martin. The first two days saw Aston Martin putting in a few laps to the car but compared to other teams their laps numbers were low after they were forced to end their day 3 testing early after an oil leak made the car catch on fire with Sebastian Vettel at the wheel.
Sebastien Vettel Lap timings and laps completed
Four times F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel called the AMR22 “a completely different animal” as he believes “there’s still an awful lot to understand,” about it. He participated in all of Aston Martin’s training with his last day cut short after a small oil leak cause a fire.
Sebastian Vettel finished P6 in the first two days of testing and P5 on the last day after clocking in his fastest lap of the whole 174 laps he completed in the test, 1.19.824.
| Day of testing | Fastest lap | Rank | Laps completed |
| Day One (February 23) | 1.21.276 | P6 | 52 Laps |
| Day Two (February 24) | 1.20.784 | P6 | 74 Laps |
| Day Three (February 25) | 1.19.824 | P5 | 48 Laps |
Lance Stroll Lap Timings and Laps completed
Lance Stroll was unable to complete his whole 3 days of testing after the fire incident in Day 3 morning session when Sebastian Vettel was behind the wheels. He was only able to complete 122 laps with his highest finish and fastest lap coming on Day 2 of the testing.
| Day of testing | Fastest lap | Rank | Laps completed |
| Day One | 1.23.327 | P13 | 67 Laps |
| Day Two | 1.21.920 | P12 | 55 Laps |
| Day Three | – | – | – |
Struggles faced by Aston Martin
Aston Martin put in a total of 296 laps in the three-day test run which put them at 7 in terms number of laps completed by the whole team in the grid and the major problem they had to suffer was the car breaking down in the morning session of Day 3. This meant Sebastian Vettel had to cut short his test runs.
Lance Stroll failed to produce a performance that could match his teammates in the same car. He was forced to scrap his Day 3 test runs after the breakdown and missed out on the chance to run some laps that can help him to understand the machine more before hitting the Bahrain test runs.
Aston Martin’s new radical design failed to ratify the return of proposing and the team also had struggles in meeting the maximum weight mark similar to other teams.
Positives for Aston Martin to take away
Though their highlight in Barcelona has been a smoking car for Aston Martin there are things to cheer for too. They were by far the better performing team in the midfield in testing. The new challenger also represents the strong character shown by the Aston Martin team as they were able to bring out a car on there with some team-specific designs following a disaster in 2021 and multiple changes of personals that have taken place at the top level.
Another highlight for them was how consistent Sebastian Vettel was in keeping the car in lines he was taking a testament to the car’s stability. The team has a really good base to build upon and the risk they took in terms of designing the car might help them to reap the benefits in 2022.
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Justin P Joy
(4875 Articles Published)