Aston Martin Chief Reveals Legendary F1 Driver Was Considered As Lance Stroll Replacement

F1 fans have been calling for a driver line-up at Aston Martin consisting of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, and team chief Mike Krack has now revealed he had considered it as an option for the team.

With just a fortnight to go until the opening race of the season, Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll suffered from braking both of his wrists and toe in a biking accident meaning he had to pull out of pre-season testing.

It was touch and go over whether Stroll would be able to recover in time for the Bahrain Grand Prix and Krack has confirmed the team considered replacing Stroll with Vettel, who left the team at the end of 2022 as he retired from the sport.

Instead, they brought in reserve driver Felipe Drugovich for pre-season testing. During an interview on the F1 Nation podcast, Krack was asked if he considered bringing Vettel back, he responded:

“Yes 100% but we didn’t do it.

“Because we have such a high respect for Sebastian and his decision that he made at the time that I think it would not have been correct even to us. We wanted to respect the way he was and we didn’t want to put him in any difficult position.”

Krack continued:

“We were in touch for the New Year obviously.

“But then also, Sebastian was Sebastian. [He was] congratulating us, very gentleman [like], on our first podium in Bahrain.

“I always said to him ‘you know, this is also your merit’ because he brought us really one step up over the previous two years.

“He brought us up in a lot of areas where we have learned a lot and we have progressed a lot. So he has certainly [played] his part in where we are now.

“But he’s comfortable with that. He was not in any kind of regretting [stage] or whatever, because he was very conscious about his decision when he made it and I think the respect between himself and the team or the respect between himself and myself is really shown by this great moment of sort of congratulating us.

“That was really, really appreciated and I also relayed it to the whole team.”