Alonso: 'Aston is putting fear into Ferrari and Mercedes – they know!'

F1

One year ago in Miami Fernando Alonso experienced complete misery – now, on the tenth anniversary of his last F1 win, he's been rejuvenated by a podium-challenging Aston Martin

1 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 2023 Azerbaijan GP

Instead of surprising, the Aston Martin in the hands of Alonso is looking a strong bet for the podium every weekend

Aston Martin

Author

Adam Cooper

Last year with Alpine Fernando Alonso had one of his more frustrating weekends of 2022, qualifying a modest 11th and finishing ninth on the road.

Then two five-second penalties for a clash with Pierre Gasly and an excursion that gained him an advantage to drop him out of the points in 11th.

Losing a couple of points was frustrating but pretty meaningless in the scheme of things as Alpine endured a season that was well below his expectations.

This year with Aston Martin the former world champion returns to Miami with his early season momentum still rolling and third place behind the Red Bulls a realistic target once again.

“Last year it was a penalty at the end of the race that I don’t want to remember,” he said when asked by Motor Sport about the difference a year makes.

Alpine-F1-driver-Fernando-Alonso-racing-at-the-2022-Miami-GP

Alonso saw a penalty cap a miserable Miami in 2022

Doug Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

“It was not understandable. This year hopefully no penalties. And fighting higher up. I think the circuit is going to be different than last year with the new tarmac. So let’s see how it goes.

“I think similar to Jeddah, and Baku, so maybe not too many surprises. But still, these temperatures are a little bit unique. Yesterday over 60 degrees track temp.

“We challenged Leclerc on Ferrari’s best weekend – that’s encouraging” Fernando Alonso

“So we have to wait and see. But the car should be fine. Only five days from Baku, so I guess the performance will not be too different.”

This has been an extraordinary season so far for Alonso, whose relationship with Aston Martin could hardly have got off to a better start.

The first three races saw three third places, largely earned on merit but helped by the odd glitch for a quicker car.

He couldn’t quite match it in Baku, but fourth – having been on the tail of pole man Charles Leclerc for much of the race – was another haul of points.

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“We challenged him for the podium, only one second to Charles,” said Alonso of the Baku race. “So that’s very encouraging for us. I think in a bad weekend, let’s say for an Aston, we are fighting for the podium against one of the best weekends for Ferrari.

“They were on pole position on the sprint race, pole position for the main race. And they were just one second in front of us on Sunday. So good news.”

Remarkably four races into to season he lies third in the world championship, behind the Red Bull guys of course, but ahead of the four drivers from Mercedes and Ferrari, none of whom has been able to put together such a consistent campaign.

It’s great story for F1 in a year where Red Bull’s domination in danger of eclipsing everything else, and even those who traditionally have never been fans of Alonso would be happy to see circumstances unfold that allow the wily old fox to score a victory for Aston, either before or after his 42nd birthday in July.

Perhaps the most remarkable statistic is that his 32nd and most recent victory was achieved on home ground in Barcelona on May 12th 2013. In other words we are just a week away from the 10th anniversary…

5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2013 Spanish GP

10th anniversary of Alonso’s last win – at Barcelona 2013 – is fast-approaching

Grand Prix Photo

Alonso remains confident that, inspired by technical director Dan Fallows, – in retrospect a brilliant signing by team boss Lawrence Stroll – the team can keep up in the development race. However at the same time he makes it clear that, on balance, form is better than anyone could have realistically expected.

“It will change I think track to track, depending on the characteristics, but within one-tenth up and down. I heard that Mercedes and Ferrari will bring big things in Imola.

“If we can still outscore them on Sunday, that’s good news” Fernando Alonso

“We have scheduled some upgrades that you will see from time to time in the year, but I don’t know, for us it’s just a gift, where we are. We didn’t expect to be in this position.

“So we just race every Sunday calmly, without pressure, and if we can still outscore them on Sunday, that’s good news. If we can’t, because we cannot follow their progress that they are making, we will prepare for 2024 for the best way possible.

“But we are growing as a team. We are in a position that we didn’t expect with a very fast car. And we are trying to make the team strong in in all the other areas where we are still not maybe at the at the highest level.”

Asked if other teams underestimated Aston’s ability to further develop the AMR23 he deadpanned: “They did already. And they do every weekend!”

Aston has been in the mix with Ferrari and Mercedes every weekend, sometimes ahead of one or the other in qualifying, often ahead of both on race pace. It’s actually developing into a great little battle if you look beyond the Red Bulls, but Alonso says there’s no obvious pattern to it.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said in Miami. “I think it has been quite close between all the teams in Bahrain. They had a very strong qualifying, and then we had better degradation. In Jeddah also Charles was in the first row of the grid but then had the penalty from Bahrain.

“In Australia, Mercedes were fast, and also Ferrari. And then [in Baku], Charles was quite fast too. I think it has been always very, very tight, within one or two tenths from each other.

“Maybe they are a little bit better on Saturdays, we are little bit better on Sundays. But I think it has been quite consistent from Bahrain until Baku.”

3 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 2023 Azerbaijan GP

Alonso is more than happy with current Aston progress

Aston Martin

One thing that could favour Aston in Miami is the AMR23’s superior performance on tyre degradation.

Alonso was left frustrated in Baku when an early safety car saw a mass switch to hard tyres, and he didn’t get to demonstrate how well he was looking after his mediums by running long on them.

“The strength of the car, for whatever reason, is still the tyre degradation, which seems a little bit better than the others. Unfortunately, with the safety car, we all put the hard tyres and that tyre was very robust until the end.

“Without that safety car I think the Ferraris were struggling a lot in the first stint. So maybe Miami is a better chance for us.”

He’s hoping that high track temperatures and a grippy new surface will work for Aston: “Yeah, that will be probably the strength of our car.

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He says a close field makes passing harder: “I think because we are very close in terms of performance, if you remove the Red Bull sometimes, within six tenths, you are from P3 to P16 in Q1 to go out of the next session. So then eventually, you finish qualifying in the order that you deserve.

“And then in the race, how you will overtake a car that in front of you who is just half a tenth quicker than you? So it’s more or less your natural order.

“So I think that’s the main reason. And then it could be the tyres as well. They still get overheated quite heavily if you follow cars. So you need to decide wisely when you want to be too close to a car in front of you. So that’s the problem.”

He has a pretty relaxed view about the lack of overtaking in general – in essence he’s seen it all before, so why get too excited?

“This is F1. So it has been always like this. It has been seven years, Hamilton and Bottas first and second, it has been in the past Vettel and Webber. So if you have the fastest car, you can start a little bit behind and you still may be making some moves and overtakes.

2 Fernando Alonso Atson Martin 2023 Azerbaijan GP

Silverstone team still has upgrades planned throughout the season

Aston Martin

“And if you are in in any other car, as I said we are all within one tenth or whatever. So whatever your qualifying, you’re still more or less secure in that position. And there are not many overtaking after lap two or three.

“But you know, even here, we could see some rain forecast for Sunday. So things may change on Sunday. But to not see many overtakings is the nature of F1. So it should not be a surprise…”

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