Aston Martin announces improvements with Alpine on the hunt and message to Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin’s start to the season has left all Formula 1 fans speechless, but the British do not want to be left alone in the fight for podiums. Its owner, Lawrence Stroll, has ambitions to win races and titles, and he doesn’t want to wait for it, so the people at Silverstone are working hard to improve the car. And his first evolution will arrive at the next Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

However, Aston Martin will not be the only team to carry improvements, since, as Fernando Alonso himself admitted, “from now on, probably let’s start to see how performance levels changerace by race, depending on who brings good enough updates.”

And the team that wants to get closer to the Asturian’s car is none other than his previous team, Alpine. The French, who have not started the season well, collecting just 8 points, showed some improvement in pace in Australia, although they are still the fifth team on the grid, something they want to remedy as soon as possible.

Esteban Ocon with his Alpine in Melbourne (Photo: Alpine F1 Team)

“There will be improvements, quite decent, in Baku. And in Miami we are also going to have new parts”, announced the French team leader, Otmar Szafnauer. The Romanian believes that if they follow the development line of 2022, Alpine will be able to get closer to those above, although as he well acknowledges, “we don’t know what others have“.

Aston Martin, happy but without triumphalism

For his part, Aston Martin keeps its feet on the ground despite the good results. “It won’t always come on a podium, and I don’t want to see anyone disappointed if we get fourth, fifth, sixth. The important thing, the critical thing, is to stay close to our absolute best and bring both cars home in the points,” he said. Mike Krack, Aston Martin team principal.

The British want to continue Looking up, but they know that creating high expectations is not always the best option, as Fernando Alonso has already suffered in previous years with Alpine and McLaren. For this reason, Aston Martin prefers to enjoy what they are achieving and keep improving.

“The biggest improvements will come later. We will have some new parts in Baku, Imola, Montreal and also in Silverstone. But we’ll use every little bit of progress as soon as it’s ready., instead of waiting to bundle everything into big packages. It’s an approach that worked well for us last year with the AMR22,” says Mike Krack, which shows that the team is still working well and finding things on the car.

This new style regarding expectations pleases Alonso, who on other occasions has seen how his teams talked about big things and then failed. “We are competing against Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, who are used to this kind of pace of development. We may still be in a learning process, so we have to approach 2023 with a lot of humility.“, argues the Asturian. It will be necessary to see how the improvements of each team work, but for the moment, Fernando’s decision to change teams seems the right one.