“You have to be proud”: Fernando Alonso is delighted with Aston Martin’s rapid rise this winter

Fernando Alonso feels Aston Martin should be proud of the car they have designed for the 2023 season. Despite finishing Friday's practice in Bahrain at the top of the timesheets, the double champion believes they still have their work cut out over the weekend.

Asked if AMR23 is the best car he has had in the last 10 years, Fernando Alonso spoke to on-site media, including Sportskeeda, saying:

“I don’t know, obviously it feels god to drive. I will lie if I say that it is not feeling good but everything is relative to what the other teams are doing and you know you can feel very good on one car and maybe there are other three or four cars faster than you and then it doesn’t feel that good anymore. So let’s see where we are, I think we have to be proud you know of the step that we have done."

He added:

"It has been very intense two or three months work in the factory, we spent endless hours in the simulator, in the meetings, tried to anticipate what problems we could face in these first couple of races. As I said the knowledge that this team has and the talent that this team has is probably unprecedented with the group of people we have. That is something very encouraging for the future.”

Fernando Alonso clocked the second-fastest lap in the first free practice session in Bahrain and the fastest in the second one. He is delighted with the car he has been provided with. While he refrained from comparing it to the cars he has driven in the last 10 years, the Spaniard was delighted to be driving the quick machine.

The Aston Martin driver felt the team should be proud of what they have produced over the winter. Fernando Alonso praised the hard work, talent, and efforts that have gone into AMR23.

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Fernando Alonso downplayed fighting championships in 2023; stated he won’t be disappointed if he loses pole position in Bahrain

Evaluating his Friday outing, Fernando Alonso is still refraining from getting carried away with the pace of the Aston Martin AMR23. He still has a lot to improve on and has his work cut out for the weekend.

In the long run, the Spaniard felt the first three rounds on the calendar have diverse characteristics. Hence, it is difficult to predict where they stand in the pecking order. However, he feels the team now have a better idea and understanding of their car performance compared to testing last week.

Commenting on his pace and competitiveness in the practice sessions, Fernando Alonso said:

“Yeah it felt good. Obviously it’s good to see the times that you are competitive. After testing there is a always a mixed feeling where you are, and there’s still until we go into the qualifying and the race. In the race we go to different circuits, Bahrain Jeddah and Australia. So at the moment we are concentrating on ourselves, still lot of things to improve on our car."

He added:

"The balance is not completely perfect today and I think also the team has to change within, we are in the process of trying to reinforce every area if the team. I have different philosophies from my past, we have Stoffel coming also coming in with a different background as well. So we tried to regroup everything and be the strongest team possible. That’s the process we are in now and it’s quite interesting.”

Asked if he would be disappointed if he’s not on pole in Bahrain, Fernando Alonso replied:

“No not at all I’m not thinking that high, to be honest. Actually I don’t know what position we will be a good one for us. After testing we were thinking to be in Q3 with both cars, score as many points as possible in these couple of races, try not to make mistakes. It is very easy to make a mistake, it’s not the same fighting for P12, P14 than fighting for top 5 positions because the pressure is different, the adrenaline is different."

Fernando Alonso continued:

"So there are a lot of things for us as a team to grow together in this process. So I expect that we will unfortunately make some mistakes, I maybe make some mistakes because it’s a new team, new team procedures, team as well so we need to have our feet on the ground. The target has to be fighting the championship, but in the long term, not this year yet.”

Trying to be as realistic as he can be, Fernando Alonso believes it’s still early days to determine whether Aston Martin will fight for championships in 2023. He feels that despite titles being the target, it will be more achievable and within sight in 2024.

As per their qualifying pace, they evenly matched Red Bull and the Spaniard was close to Red Bull in terms of race pace ahead of the Bahrain GP.

Last seen on the podium at the Qatar GP in 2021 with Alpine, 2023 could witness the double champion on the podium more often.