Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team Principal Mike Krack officially started work at our Silverstone HQ this week and he explains below how he plans to help the organisation rise to the challenge of competing at the front of the grid in the coming years.
The journey to Silverstone has been a long one for Mike, and it fittingly included a spell working with Sebastian Vettel.
When the German became the third driver for BMW-Sauber at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix, it was Mike who acted as his race engineer.
Sebastian gave a glimpse into his star talent by topping second practice on that same weekend, starting his Formula One journey towards becoming a four-time World Champion.
Nearly 16 years after that Istanbul weekend, the two are colleagues again. For Mike, his motorsport path took him across a variety of series after leaving BMW.
Stints in Formula 3 followed before a return to the German manufacturer as chief engineer of its DTM programme, later joining Porsche for its immensely successful and Le Mans-winning LMP1 efforts.
By 2014, he had once again returned to BMW and rose through its ranks to oversee its Formula E, IMSA and GT programmes.
With such a varied CV across many race and title-winning programmes, he was a natural candidate to become AMF1’s new team principal.
Mike Krack joins as Team Principal
Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team is delighted to announce that Mike Krack has been appointed Team Principal.
A headhunting process led to meetings with Martin Whitmarsh, Group CEO of Aston Martin Performance Technologies, and Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll. Hearing of the team’s ambitious five-year plan to reach the front of the grid made the decision all the easier.
"You've probably seen what's happening in Silverstone," says Mike. "We are on a five-year plan, and the infrastructure change here is tremendous.
"Ours is the first F1 headquarters built in nearly two decades, which clearly shows the ambition Lawrence and the team has.
"The five-year plan has all the facilities needed to be successful by then, we're progressing on our journey."
The ambition of the team is clear, and Mike has already seen promising signs within.
Up close with Lance, Sebastian and the AMR22
INSIDER returns to take you behind the scenes in Barcelona, as the F1 grid returned to the track. See the AMR22 from all-new angles and get exclusive insights into the test from Lance, Sebastian and the team. Grab some popcorn, get comfortable, and watch the full film.
"When I looked at Team Silverstone, I sensed a similar situation to BMW-Sauber," he says. "We overperformed, and then a big partner [BMW] arrived, and suddenly you had possibilities you'd never had before.
"We have something similar here, and that was attractive to me. There is a great bunch of people here, and that helped me make the decision.
"It is also Formula One, and that is super attractive. I could not be in a better team than this one, with all the new challenges and possibilities, so I'm extremely privileged.
"Formula One is like the Champions' League. Every professional footballer wants to play in the Champions' League, and it's the same principle for a motorsport engineer with F1.
"The pressure is here, but we must turn that into positive pressure – you can't win from the very beginning, so it is a huge challenge, but it's also a huge opportunity. But with the Aston Martin brand, we have all the ingredients to be successful."
I could not be in a better team than this one. I'm extremely privileged.
The task ahead for Mike is bringing those ingredients together to form a leading Formula One team. Joining in a period of transition, but with the foundations for sustained success, he is in the driving seat to effect positive change.
Work is ongoing on a brand-new factory that also encompasses a state-of-the-art wind tunnel, with the new HQ set to house every manufacturing resource within a single campus.
Benefitting from Team Silverstone's leaner years, Aston Martin has been able to build upwards to the cost cap whereas leading teams have had to slim budgets. It's also helped the team recruit industry-leading talent to bolster the existing talented workforce.
It's only natural that such an expansion could lead to growing pains. While the 2021 season was a challenging campaign, it proved beneficial in helping the team learn lessons and implement improvements.
It’s into this structure that Mike now arrives, and he believes his experience working for major manufacturers in motorsport will help him maximise all resources available.
Six key areas of F1 2022: Car design
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Mike’s experience of spreading resources across a variety of programmes, makes him well-versed in making cost vs success calculations that are at the heart of modern F1.
"It's difficult to talk about your strengths, but I've been in engineering for a very long time in F1 and elsewhere, such as Formula E and sportscars," says Mike.
"I don't think my strength is in engineering, I think I have managed to bring people together, trusting them and enabling them [to succeed]. I form teams that work well together.
"This is not a five-minute job. You can bring in very bright individuals who don't work well together, so it's more about teamwork than the individuals.
"It's a fine balance between having good people but also having them [work] together. The team is everything.
"In F1, we have a large headcount, and we must all have the same goal. Not just the race team, but everyone involved.
Six key areas of F1 2022: The race to produce car parts
The development race in Formula One never stops, and with radical new regulations for 2022, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team has been working on the AMR22 for over a year.
"It's about the right spirit and the right attitude. This has helped me in the past, and my engineering background allows me to really understand what is happening, so you can focus on the right areas.
"You must approach it [the job] in a humble way; you have to understand how this team is working.
"We must not forget that Team Silverstone has been a great operation for a number of years, it has always overperformed.
"It's important to find the strength of the team and then improve on some of the weaknesses.
"I have held a lot of discussions with individuals, team leaders and department leaders to understand how the team works and how it is run. It would be foolish to come here on day one and turn every stone upside down and rearrange them.
"So I take a conservative approach: learn as much as possible and then implement my philosophy, which is positive teamwork.
"Motivation comes by itself, and the people here are motivated. It's about channelling it correctly."
Motivation comes by itself, and the people here are motivated.
The same philosophy also extends to driver management.
Mike describes having a 'special link' with Sebastian from their previous spell in F1, and he sees the immediate benefits Sebastian and Lance Stroll bring to the team.
Sebastian's experience as a four-time World Champion proved hugely beneficial in Aston Martin's F1 comeback season, giving the team insight from his previous race- and title-winning campaigns.
Lance has continued to grow with the team, with a well-established relationship between driver and engineers leading to regular point finishes in the AMR21.
Return of ground effect
For F1 aficionados, ground effect evokes memories of the championship's past, when the 1970s played host to a series of incredible innovations that pushed the boundaries of downforce and performance.
Mike sees maintaining a strong relationship with both drivers as a cornerstone of success: "It's important for high-class drivers to feel the support of the team," he says. "It's important to be transparent about what we expect and where we are."
Those expectations again feed into the five-year plan.
Teams joining F1 with similar hopes is nothing new, but Mike believes Aston Martin has the tools to succeed thanks to one key advantage.
"Five-year plans do not always lead to success, there can only be one winner after all," he says. "But we have a flexible, lean management structure with lots of experience, so we can make decisions very quickly. That is an asset that not every team has.
"At this stage, we have everything we need, but we need to make the right decisions [going forward]. It's hard work over many days, weeks and months."
Six key areas of F1 2022: Safety innovations
The new-for-2022 Formula One cars are a radical revolution of their predecessors. But, in terms of safety developments, it's a case of evolution. In collaboration with the teams, the FIA and F1 continue to push boundaries in the pursuit of greater safety standards, and the next generation of F1 cars is a perfect demonstration.
The hard work is already well underway.
As the team reviews data from the Barcelona test, the focus is on continuing to refine and improve the AMR22.
An intense and rapid development race lies ahead, and it's a challenge the entire team is relishing.
While the five-year plan is an important element of the team's strategy, the relentless desire for improvement in F1 means the next race is always the most important.
Six key areas of F1 2022: How overtaking will change
Above all else, the new generation of Formula One cars have been designed to target better wheel-to-wheel battling and improve the spectacle for fans. Earlier this year, F1 revealed figures that suggested it has tackled the problem head-on.
Asked for his goals for the 2022 season, Mike says: "We must have a competitive car, that is key. We need to concentrate all efforts on making the car as fast as possible and develop it at the fastest possible rate.
"If we manage that, we'll be in a good position at the end of the year. We also must respect the other teams because the level of competition is very high."
Overcoming the competition is the driving force for the team, and Mike’s arrival is the next step in our journey towards the front of the grid. We climb together.
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