“It’s the first step of progress”: Fernando Alonso emphasises importance of Aston Martin developing a ‘good car’ in 2024 F1 season

Fernando Alonso believes it is very important for Aston Martin to develop a good car for 2024. Speaking to media, including Sportskeeda, after the race, the Spanish driver felt the 2023 season was the best individually after 2012.

Finishing fourth in the drivers’ championship, it is the first season Fernando Alonso has finished in the top five since 2013. Running as high as third in the championship, the Spanish champion clinched eight podiums throughout. He was the larger contributor to Aston Martin’s points tally. His teammate Lance Stroll finished 10th in the championship with 74 points.

When sked about the importance of having a good car for the 2024 season, Fernando Alonso said:

“Yeah its going to be important because obviously, this is the first step of hopefully a good progress in the team. We always said this was year one of Aston Martin being competitive, a lot of changes in the team, the new factory, all these things that we’ve been saying for a long time."

"If next year we take a step backwards that will be bad. We need to keep moving forward, we finished fifth in the constructors we need to improve that for next year, third fourth second, that will be welcome. And in my case, yeah after eight podiums this year, hopefully I can do something similar next year,” he added.

Fernando Alonso believes it is going to be extremely important for Aston Martin to develop a more competitive car for 2024 than the AMR23. He believes this year was the stepping stone to the 2024 season. The team made several changes at their Silverstone base as he had reiterated throughout the season.

The two-time F1 champion feels that his team needed to keep progressing and can't afford any finish outside the top five. On a personal level, he wishes to perform similarly or better than this year in 2024.

Asked if overtaking Yuki Tsunoda was important in the race for him in the standings, Fernando Alonso said:

“No, it was not a big deal, actually when I saw Leclerc P2 on the big screen, I thought that he was just front, but apparently we tied on points and had more third places or something like that. It’s completely unexpected, completely unreal to be fourth in the championship.

"As I said from Thursday, 2012 and this season for me are one of the best in my career and a position I could never imagine at the beginning of the year, with the car performance we had.”

Overtaking Yuki Tsunoda in the race did not make much of a difference to Fernando Alonso, as he did not anticipate finishing fourth in the championship. The 42-year-old driver was under the impression that he was behind Charles Leclerc in the drivers' standings. However, the Spaniard eclipsed the Ferrari driver in the standings despite being tied at points as he had more podiums.

Alonso felt the 2023 season along with 2012 were the best of his career, as he was able to punch beyond the capability of his team and tools.

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Fernando Alonso believes it has been a dream season for Aston Martin

Assessing the 2023 season as a whole, Fernando Alonso reckons it has been a dream season format for his team and was absolutely unexpected. With higher expectations for 2024, the Spanish champion wants more from himself as a driver and the team.

He feels that the fifth place in constructors was a bit unsatisfactory as they were running as high as second place when they started the season. Nevertheless, to finish in the top five was something he didn’t expect.

Asked to review his 2023 season, Fernando Alonso said:

“It has been a historic season for Aston Martin and myself, eight podiums, more than 200 points, 300 nearly for the team. And as I said yesterday 12 months ago this was unthinkable. So this is the best season ever for the team as well with whatever name they had before. So this is an incredible year to remember.

"The expectations were low, so we exceeded the expectations this year. Maybe the next year is opposite, the expectations will be very high, so we have some pressure on the shoulders.”

When asked if going into the next season with pressure to do better was good, Alonso replied:

“Well this is Formula 1, this is not a charity event, we have to have the pressure, we have to deliver and yeah I mean the fifth in the constructors hurts a little bit. Because I think we were better than that, we were hoping better than that at the beginning of the year."

"We are fifth in the the constructors, normally you should be ninth and tenth in the drivers. It’s a dream season for many people in Aston Martin including myself,” he added.

With his career beyond 2024 uncertain, ending the next season on a high is going to be key for Fernando Alonso. Having found his hunger to fight for podiums again, he still remains in the hunt for a win since his return to the sport in 2021.

If given the right car and a better one than the AMR23, the Aston Martin driver could be expected to be a tough contender at the front for 2024. He was almost in contention to take second and third place off Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton. However, the inconsistent performance of his car hurt his chances of finishing further up.

Nevertheless, the collective result is better than the seventh-place finish in 2022.