Fernando Alonso believes the 2023 Formula 1 season is entering an interesting phase as the sport heads to Europe next after three flyaway races , with teams starting to bring upgrades to their cars.
Fernando Alonso was speaking to the media after taking his third consecutive third place finish of this F1 season at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, as Aston Martin continues to impress as they battle it out with Mercedes and Ferrari for “best of the rest” status behind Red Bull.
While In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Alonso was only bettered by the Red Bulls, Australia saw Mercedes in a better form in qualifying, as Lewis Hamilton finished the race in second place ahead of Alonso in third, with Max Verstappen taking the win.
Asked about this change in the performance order in Melbourne, Alonso, in reference to Christian Horner’s joke about the Aston Martin resembling last year’s Red Bull RB18, quipped: “No more three Red Bulls on the podium, if Checo was here!
“But no, I think Mercedes they’ve been also strong in Jeddah, to be honest. I think all the race on Sunday, I was within one tenth of George, fighting to get this extra five seconds or whatever at the end so it was very, very close,” he added.
“It seems that qualifying is quite important now, because race pace is very similar and I think now we enter into a part of the season that is going to be very interesting: which team is developing the car faster?”
Many team will be looking to start adding performance upgrades to their cars, the most anticipated being the major upgrade Mercedes are planning to unleash at Imola late in May, and Alonso insists these upgrades will start to reshape the pecking order.
Happy days at the moment for Aston Martin
He explained: “I think the first three races being away from Europe, it’s difficult to bring upgrades and things like that. But from now on, maybe we see the level of the teams changing a little bit, race-by-race, depending on who brings an upgrade that is good enough.
“I don’t know, for us, it’s all happy days at the moment,” he said of his own team. “We never expected to be on the podium, maybe even throughout the season and in three races we have three. So everything that comes now is a plus and as I said today, third and fourth is a lot of points so we take every opportunity.
Alonso has always ensured to downplay Aston Martin’s chances since the beginning of the 2023 F1 season, a smart tactic by the Spaniard given it is the first time his team fights at the front of the grid, somethings that requires more than just a fast car.
He added in Melbourne: “We need to learn and we need to grow as a team also maybe now off-track because we are racing against Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, teams that are used to this kind of pace of development and things like that. And maybe we are just in a learning process.
“So we take this 2023 in a very humble manner and let’s see how it’s going,” the 2005 and 2006 F1 Champion concluded.