Former F1 driver Timo Glock has claimed that Sebastian Vettel could “lose patience” with Aston Martin if the team’s struggles continue.
The Silverstone-based team have had a nightmare start to the 2022 season. They are the only team yet to pick up a point.
Vettel tested positive for Covid-19 on the eve of the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Nico Hulkenburg replaced him for the opening two races.
However, neither Hulkenburg nor team-mate Lance Stroll could extract any genuine pace out of the car. They recorded a pair of 12th-placed finishes between them, but never looked competitive in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.
Things got much worse for Aston Martin in Australia last weekend. Vettel returned to the team, but his weekend got off to a bad start when his engine failed in first practice. The German then crashed in third practice on Saturday before crashing again in the race itself. To add further insult, Vettel was fined €5,000 by the FIA for riding a scooter on the track following his engine failure.
Stroll, meanwhile, was involved in an avoidable collision with Nicholas Latifi in qualifying.
The Canadian then ran in the points for substantial periods of the race but was handed a five-second penalty for weaving on the straight. He eventually finished nine seconds behind 10th-placed Alex Albon.
What did Vettel say after the Australian Grand Prix?
Speaking after his race-ending crash, Sebastian Vettel conceded that the Aston Martin car is not where he or the team would like it to be.
He explained: “[It was] maybe too much of a handful for me today. I tried to push a little bit too hard and obviously lost the car.
“Overall, obviously we know that the car is difficult and maybe I was wanting a little bit too much too soon. Obviously, I lost it a couple of times this weekend.
“[Missing the opening races] didn’t help. Obviously, in race conditions, it was the first time, and there was a lot of stuff I picked up in the first couple of laps, but unfortunately, it was a bit too short, our race. We have a lot of things that we want to improve, but we don’t have the solutions yet.”
Read: Helmut Marko sends warning to Aston Martin upon Sebastian Vettel return
Glock warns Aston Martin about Sebastian Vettel patience
Writing in his column for Sky Germany, former F1 driver Timo Glock has claimed that Vettel could lose patience with his team if they continue to struggle in F1.
The 34-year-old signed a new deal with Aston Martin back in September – although the team did not publicly announce its length. Former team principal Otmar Szafnauer had said that Vettel agreed on a “one plus one” year deal with the team when he signed for 2021.
Glock stated: “Sebastian Vettel’s racing team experienced an absolute worst-case weekend in every respect.
“The only ones to point out are the mechanics, who knelt in to get the cars back on track, which worked. But both Vettel and team-mate Lance Stroll had a completely uneven weekend with numerous mistakes.
“This is not an easy situation for the new team boss Mike Krack,” he continued.
“He comes to Aston Martin and has so many construction sites. It’s going to be a tough road for the whole team.
“I can imagine that Sebastian Vettel will lose patience at some point because he himself knows how long it takes to get out of such a low. Therefore, the question arises whether he still wants to do that to himself.
“Now you have to wait for the next races and see how he can motivate himself and what he then decides for his future.”
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