Ex-engineer names Fernando Alonso as a driver who could be 'quite difficult' to work with

Former Bridgestone director Ernest Knoors recently said that Fernando Alonso was difficult to work with given the high standards he sets within the team.

The two-time world champion has a reputation for being notoriously challenging to work with, as he expects the best from every team member every single day. The Spaniard often falls out with his teams if they cannot match the standards he sets them before the start of every season.

Speaking with RacingNews365.nl, Knoors pointed out that Fernando Alonso's reputation stems from his "motivation to win", saying:

"Ultimately, those boys are all motivated to win, to work hard. When you work with Fernando Alonso, it is a pleasure. If you have him in a team, he can also be quite difficult, because he always pushes for the best solutions for him, while as a team you may also have to look for solutions that are best for the entire team."

He added:

"In general, people who are motivated and push themselves to get the best out of it are always good to work with."

Fernando Alonso points out the weaknesses of the AMR23

Despite being the most consistent car Fernando Alonso has driven since the 2012 season, the Spanish driver stated that there were some glaring weaknesses with the AMR23.

Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin started the season strongly as they were the second fastest behind Red Bull during the first half of 2023. However, they were unable to develop the car through the year, which resulted in them getting beaten by their rivals in the second half of the season quite regularly.

As per Autosport, while speaking about the AMR23's weaknesses, Alonso said:

"I think we need to find some consistency. Maybe one of the weak points was the car has to operate in a very narrow window. It’s the same for everybody [with the ground-effect cars proving particularly sensitive], but it seems that we’re struggling a little bit, and it will be nice if we can always perform at a stable level next year."

He added:

“Also, if we can improve the straight-line speed - I think that was, in performance numbers, our weak point. Always a little bit too slow on the straights. If we wanted to be as fast as the others, we had to drop too much of the rear wing. Then we ended up slow in the corners as well."

It will be fascinating to see if Aston Martin can be faster and more competitive throughout the entire 2024 season as compared to their fluctuating 2023 campaign.