Aston Martin's 2023 was a year full of ups and downs, without a doubt exceeding initial expectations, but which also contained difficult moments during the season, due to a development that took the wrong direction. Precisely for this reason Fernando Alonso suggested how essential it is to manage expectations in view of the new championship, even if the objective is to be able to achieve that victory that slipped away this year.
Going back to twelve months ago, at the end of 2022, Aston Martin had closed the world championship on a high note, having started with a car that turned out to be completely incorrect, thanks to some technical choices that were then discarded after a few Grands Prix. The British team had gone from fighting to avoid the last row to the possibility of fighting for the points zone, albeit not with great consistency, because the design limits were still very present and evident.
However, in view of the new year the team was confident of being able to take a step forward and firmly enter the fight for the top ten, thanks to the arrival of high-level personnel. An objective achieved, even going beyond expectations, given that in the first part of the championship on several occasions the AMR23 had established itself as the second force behind only Red Bull, thanks both to a good overall balance and to its driving characteristics, which they made it an easy car for drivers to tame.
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23
“It's been an incredible season. And probably 12 months ago, or even 10 months ago, when we launched the car, we didn't expect to be in this position. It's been an incredible journey,” Fernando Alonso said.
“From a driver's point of view, it was a pleasure to see the determination and focus in the performance that we have seen from Aston Martin this year. The AMR23 was fast straight away, but this is a very demanding sport, very competitive, so we had to continue to develop the car and focus on performance. It was a very intense season.”
That potential had already begun to be glimpsed during the winter tests in Bahrain, where the AMR23 had surprised not only for the speed shown over long distances, but also for the excellent tire management, an aspect which then contributed to the six podiums in the first eight races : “During the pre-season testing I thought it was too good to be true. Then there was the first race, we were as competitive as the test suggested and we got on the podium. I had the feeling that the opportunity was there for me and the team to do something great together. The project seemed to come to life. It was magic”, added the Spaniard.
Aston had made pure cargo its best weapon. It often showed up at the starting line at the weekend with weaker rear wings which however contributed to a negative impact on top speed, one of the great weaknesses of the AMR23. However, the possibility of managing the tires better, the time gained in the slow sections, as well as in the faster sections where the loading qualities of the single-seater shined, made it possible to compensate for what was lost not so much in qualifying, but in the race.
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23
However, that initial advantage diminished over the course of the world championship. On the one hand, after understanding the problems with their respective concepts, both Ferrari and Mercedes began to bring substantial innovations that allowed them to grow and advance in the standings, partially remedying an aspect that had instead penalized them in the first part of the championship. On the other hand, what weighed on the performance of the AMR23 was a development that did not reap the desired results, given that the engineers followed a direction that later turned out to be the wrong one. The strengths that had enabled the single-seater to compete for the podium at the start of the world championship no longer allowed it to be able to appear in the noblest areas of the ranking, if not for a couple of exploits.
A drop in form evident not only from the poor performance, but also from the behavior of the car itself, which had lost its docile and predictable character at the beginning of the year, becoming a nervous car and difficult for the drivers to read.
“I don't think it's a secret to say that those times are always difficult. There is no magic recipe for keeping motivation high and being happy. This is a sport where there are always frustrations, bad moments, low moments, and people sometimes they struggle to hide their disappointment – and there's nothing wrong with that. It's part of sport and life. The important thing during the most difficult weekends was to understand what the problem was, delving into the analysis of the car and what we could have done differently if we had repeated the weekend. This kind of thing, these exercises, made the team stronger and it was good learning for the future.”
Hoping to make up for its mistakes, Aston Martin showed up in Austin with its last substantial package of the season. According to the team, the updates introduced in the United States GP were supposed to correct what had not worked in recent months, also helping to resolve those balance problems that had made the car increasingly unpredictable. However, not everything went according to plan.
Detail of the fund brought in the latest update package
Indeed, the US stage proved to be one of the most complicated of the year, so much so that it was decided to start from the pit lane by diversifying the packages available to the two drivers: if the new features remained on Lance Stroll's car, on Fernando Alonso's it was mounted the old package. A drastic approach, which however allowed a direct comparison between the various solutions.
Some of those innovations were in fact also designed for 2024, but they did not work as hoped, especially those linked to the subsequently discarded floor, which took up some ideas already seen on other single-seaters. Although the experiments did not fully yield the desired results, they still made it possible to collect useful data in view of the next season, especially for winter development. Alonso tried not to raise expectations excessively, although the dream always remains to achieve his first victory with the team, achieved this year in Monaco.
“When we hit the track in the winter tests or in race one next year, I think we will see how things are and we will be very open about the objectives we will set for the championship. We hope to be competitive again, to regularly fight for the points and podiums, to get our first victory – it would be a dream – but we cannot underestimate the challenge.
“This year we exceeded expectations because expectations were low. That's why this season is extraordinary. If we set expectations that are too high, unrealistic, there is a risk of the opposite happening,” added Alonso.
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