EXCLUSIVE: How Aston Martin’s ex-leader landed unexpected role

Mike Krack never intended to be an F1 team principal, yet at Aston Martin, he found himself holding that exact title for three years.

The 52-year-old comes from an engineering background in motorsport and F1, beginning his career as a test engineer for BMW in 1998. Three years later, he joined Sauber and rose through the ranks.

He worked with Felipe Massa as a race engineer and was later promoted to chief engineer, working closely with Sebastian Vettel ahead of his grand prix debut. After leaving F1 at the end of 2009, Krack held several positions at BMW and Porsche, where he was head of trackside engineering for their World Endurance Championship team.

Krack’s first foray into motorsport management came during a return to BMW. Between 2014 and 2022, he oversaw their Formula E, IMSA and GT programmes. His career then took an unexpected turn when he received a call out of the blue from Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll offering him a role within the F1 team.

Krack told Crash.net that he initially thought the call would be about an engineering role. When it turned out to be for the position of team principal, Krack was surprised, but felt a passion ignite inside of him.

“The expectation for engineering was because I had engineering roles in F1 before,” Krack explained as part of an exclusive interview conducted at last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“I had engineering roles for a long time, also post-F1. The management roles came only over the last two or three years before. So that is why I thought that was mainly the reason.

“Then I found out that it was not engineering over these discussions and being humble, I thought ‘wow this is a big task’. But then you also sometimes have to seize opportunities. To say ‘am I ready to get out of my comfort?’ Because there are a lot of areas where you are not so comfortable anymore.

“Engineering, without sounding arrogant, when you have done that for so long, you know your references, you know what are the things that make the car fast and what you have to do. But then in the team management role, there are a lot of other tasks.

“There is the stuff that I have to do with you here, that as an engineer, you just just ignore it. So there are a lot of things that are new.”

Krack’s time at Sauber taught him valuable lessons about what makes a good leader and those experiences would ultimately stand him in good stead for when he got the opportunity to become a team principal for the first time at Aston Martin

“I think you have to really be authentic. You have to be authentic, and you have to be credible,” Krack said.

“First of all, you have to have respect for everybody and you have to lead by example. I cannot ask everybody to be here at 8am and I arrive at 10am. I cannot ask everybody to have prepared everything for the meeting and I come totally unprepared.

“So I think if you try to lead by example, it's much easier. And I have always admired some leaders that I had in my previous life, because they were leading my example, and this is what I tried to follow.”

Sauber’s former technical director Willy Rampf, and team principal and owner Peter Sauber, were two key figures who influenced Krack.

“One very good example is Willy Rampf, he was technical director at Sauber at that time. And Peter Sauber, they were very inspiring to me with robust management,” he said.

“No panic, calm approach, but firm though. If Peter or Willy said ‘we do this or we go that direction’, that was the direction we took. So there was a lot of thought going into what we are doing next, but then there was not five times a change of direction.

“That was something that I thought gave us as the receiving people a lot of security and guidance. ‘Okay, this is what we have to do, and this is what you have to try to achieve’. You know that you are clear and everybody knows what he has to do.”

A major organisational restructure at Aston Martin at the start of this year saw Krack moved into the position of chief trackside officer, with CEO Andy Cowell assuming the role of team principal.

The change has created separate teams focused trackside and at the factory, both of which will report into Cowell. It comes after Aston Martin’s performances fell away for successive campaigns after making a flying start to 2023.

Despite finishing fifth in the constructors’ championship two years on the trot, Aston Martin suffered a worrying development trend and were less competitive last term compared to the season before.

While Krack’s job swap is effectively a demotion, he will find himself in more familiar territory in a role that will enable him to maximise his skillset. It will represent something of a full circle moment as Krack returns to his motorsport roots.

The ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ side to Krack

There were two major reasons behind Krack’s decision to quit F1 at the end of 2009.

Krack was left irked by BMW’s decision to switch off significant development after Robert Kubica led a 1-2 in Canada to take the lead of the drivers’ championship.

He saw that campaign as a golden opportunity to win a championship, but BMW  had other ideas and wanted to prioritise resources for the 2009 regulation overhaul and for what it felt would be a better shot at winning the championship.

History will show that was a huge chance spurned. BMW fell out of title contention in 2008 and failed to nail the 2009 rule set - a double hammer blow.

The other, more personal factor, was that Krack had a young family.

“Stopping was part of the plan because I had a young family and I did not want to have a family and be away all the time, so that was a conscious decision to stop at the time,” he said.

“That was after nine years in Sauber. I did not really have a big ambition to come back, because I had done it. When I stopped, I was comfortable with myself. I had not been kicked out or anything. It was my own choice, and I was happy and enjoying what I was doing.

“It was fantastic to see my kids grow up, to be part of it. And then I was running the BMW motorsports department and there was a phone call one day where, to be honest, I was watching Formula 1 as a fan on TV with my little timing screen on the side to understand everything.

“But there was no real ambition or plan. I did not push with any other on my network to get back. But then when this phone call came, the spark reignited somehow. I was like, ‘wow, I have to do this’ and this is when I came back.”

Away from the F1 circus, Krack describes himself as “a normal person”, who is “humble”, “family oriented” and maybe even a touch “boring”. There is no pretence. What you see is what you get.

“Sometimes I come back between two races and people ask me, ‘what have you done over the weekend?’ I take my kids back from school. I pick my kids up from the training. I went shopping. Real life,” he continued.

“Have a barbecue with friends, and I went go-karting with my kids. Or I went to the pitch and watched my son playing football, or my daughter, she's a pole vaulter, I watch them and support them. So nothing spectacular, but that is what I love.”

The F1 calendar now features an all-time high, gruelling 24-race schedule. With more hours spent on the road (or in the air) than ever before, any time at home becomes all the more precious. That is why Krack places emphasis on ensuring he separates work from his personal life.

“Obviously when I come home the first day, my family is very supportive of what I'm doing, so there are a lot of questions like what do you think [about] the next race? Where will the car be? And all of that,” he said.

“But that calms down over the weekend and then it's just a normal, average family.”