"With Mercedes it's a game on the cutting edge" - Fernando Alonso relishing the battle with rivals after dream start for Aston Martin’s F1 season

Fernando Alonso feels that the upcoming round of the 2023 Formula 1 season in Azerbaijan could see many changes in teams' performances due to the development packages. He also believes it will be crucial for his team to remain competitive with their current rivals.

After the first three rounds of this season of F1, it can be safely said that Red Bull are continuing their domination on track, however, things have shaken up right below them on the grid.

After Fernando Alonso's move to Aston Martin, the team's performances have skyrocketed in contrast to 2022. The AMR23 is so well-developed that it has been on the podium in all three races so far.

This also makes them the second fastest car on the grid, and they are currently battling with Mercedes for the position. Teams will be bringing in upgrades before the next round of the season kicks in in Baku because of the whopping 3-week gap (after the cancelation of the Chinese GP).

Fernando Alonso believes that Mercedes are quite a competition for their team during the qualifying sessions, however, Baku will answer the utmost question for him currently, as Motorsport quoted him:

"With Mercedes it's a game on the cutting edge in qualifying. For us it's a very important round, because then our race pace is very similar and now we'll enter a very interesting phase of the season: which team is developing its car more quickly?"

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Fernando Alonso feels Aston Martin will have to develop rigorously to maintain their competitiveness

The 2023 season has been a huge jump for Aston Martin in terms of performance and competitiveness. While they have been on the podium in all three races so far, Fernando Alonso stated that the team wasn't expecting such a good performance.

Fernando Alonso said:

"At the moment it's all happy days. We never expected to get on the podium, maybe not even for the whole season. Instead in three races we got three. So everything that comes from now on will be an 'more'."

He added that the other top teams and the ones they are competing with; Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari, are used to being at this pace and hence their development strategies are planned accordingly. At the same time, however, he feels that Aston Martin will have to develop a lot quicker to keep this pace.

Fernando Alonso added:

"We have to seize every opportunity and learn to grow as a team, maybe even off the track, because we're competing against Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari , teams that are used to this kind of pace of development."

The Spaniard feels that the team is still in a learning process of battling at the top of the field and will thus have to take this season 'humbly.' However, it cannot be denied that the double world champion's two decades' worth of experience will help the team grow much more and perhaps be on the top step of the podium in the near future.