From doubts to great surprise
When the agreement between Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin for 2023, several fans welcomed the news with a hint of skepticism, given and considering the results of the British team in that period with Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel. In a season in which the Canadian achieved 6th place in Singapore as his best overall finish, combined with the German’s retirement from competition at the end of the year, few would have expected to see an Aston Martin on the podium in six of the first eight races of the world championshipas also happened thanks to the performances of the two-time world champion.
Victory was missing
The Silverstone house has in fact turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of this season, with eight podiums overall all conquered by Alonso. It is no coincidence that in the first part of the championship it did not even become unlikely ‘Mission 33’, that is, the challenge launched by the Spaniard to try to achieve his 33rd victory in F1 ten years after his last victory. An aim that was however unsuccessful, thanks above all to one results crisis suffered in the middle of the season which also distanced the team from a possible fight for the top-3 in the Constructors’ championship.
Not at the top yet
Overall, at the end of this season, Alonso certainly cannot be considered dissatisfied with his first experience in Aston Martin, except for one asterisk that the 42-year-old himself admitted at the end of the games: “I only see positive aspects – he explained to the media – these difficulties are part of the job and I am part of this team’s journey. I think we started very strong with the car which was surprisingly competitive, even for us with the transition from last year to this year. We perhaps found ourselves in a position for which we were not readyto fight with Mercedes, Ferrari, the top teams who are used to fighting at that level. Maybe we took a small step back in terms of the development of the car during the season too, we are not yet at the maximum level, and we found ourselves a little less competitive. But all in all, I think that 12 months ago it was unthinkable to think about the season we had. I remember last year’s test perfectly after the race here in Abu Dhabi with the team.”
The most beautiful races
In addition, the 2005 and 2006 world champion also indicated what, in his opinion, were his best GPs of the season just ended, not without a curiosity: “Bahrain, Monaco, Canada, Monza and Brazil will be my top five events of the year – he listed – and I put Monza on purpose because it was a ninth place. It wasn’t a podiumit wasn’t anything that people will remember, but probably in Monza we had the slowest caror the second slowest, and have closed in points area it was one of those weekends where everything was very good.”
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