metamorphosis of Aston Martin this 2023, despite what was seen in the pre-season tests in Bahrain and the remarkable result of Fernando Alonsonot finished at all.
In fact, as the British team itself states, “two thirds of the car will change during the season”. And precisely that abrupt transition, which deals with changing the 95% of the pieces from AMR22 to AMR23, is what the Asturian has had to deal with in Sakhir.
Analyzing the three test days in statements to ‘Ace’, Alonso assures that there is a “good basis for future cars” and that the Aston Martin is “easy to drive”… but also that there is a lot of fish to be cut.
Can it be said that these three days have been fruitful?: “It depends on what is considered to be going well. I know that there is a lot of attention to time, but you never know what others roll. We are happy because we can work on the car, the three days have gone well, it has been easy to drive and we have already verified that has a very different work window from last year. It looks like it’s a good base for future cars, but nothing more than that.”
How could it be otherwise, victim of that metamorphosis that starts this text, the AMR23 has some handicaps to overcome given the lack of full knowledge that exists around the car, which leads to loss of time.
“There was more reliability than in recent years. We had some problems the first day, but that’s fine. The thing is that it’s such a new car, in everything, that to make the change of a spring or whatever it takes longer than we expect. Then we lose a bit of time in the program, because a little more practice is needed”, explains Alonso.
“We had a long list of things to complete and we have done half of it. But that’s how the tests are”, he adds, denoting that the three days did not end as well as it seems.
Stroll’s absence
Another of the problems that Fernando points out is the lack of adaptation that he still has and the help that Stroll could have given him in this regard.
Of course, take advantage of your partner’s absence to roll more laps was not good news: “It is worse. Worse. Because I feel things in the car, or transmit things to the engineers, which I don’t know if they are part of the Aston Martin philosophy or that they really come from the physics of the car”.
“If the pilot who has been here every year was there, it would be a great help, because we could have had your ‘feedback’. In fact, we have always been in contact with him in case he could answer many questions. I wish I had tried it,” he settled.
