Racing
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Jak Crawford says Aston Martin’s attempted recovery is not happening around him but with him, with Adrian Newey and Enrico Cardile personally reviewing the reserve driver’s simulator work as the team searches for a way back to competitiveness.
Speaking to Motorsport Week during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Crawford said the simulator has become the center of his contribution because the team’s senior technical figures are closely following what he does there. “Yeah, yeah, it’s a privilege,” Crawford said. “We’ve got great people in the team and I think my favorite part is always when I’m doing my simulator sessions.” He said Newey and Cardile study those sessions, adding that seeing his work reviewed by Aston Martin’s top engineers makes him feel that it is being noticed and turned into results.
That matters against a difficult backdrop for the team. Aston Martin has slipped from the upper end of the midfield to the back of the grid within a few years, and Crawford admitted the start of the current season was hard to understand because the work being done was not delivering the performance it should have.
Even so, he made clear that he sees himself inside the rebuilding effort rather than watching it from the sidelines. “Of course. I’m the type of person who can stay positive even when things are not going well,” Crawford said. He added that everyone had been working hard and that “eventually we should be able to regain competitiveness,” saying he saw no reason not to feel happy or positive about the future.
His role is not limited to the simulator. After the interview, Crawford drove the AMR26B fitted with the new Honda power unit during a filming day at the Hungaroring, work that helped connect simulator learning to real-car running as Aston Martin continued development on its next package.
That leaves Crawford directly involved in the team’s next step as Formula 1 heads to Zandvoort, where Aston Martin plans to bring an additional update including Honda power unit specification B, making his feedback part of the immediate effort to move the team forward.