The giant leap of Aston Martin it is already a reality. The fifth place of Fernando Alonso in the classification of the Bahrain Grand Prix confirms that the AMR23 You can look at the three teams in front from you. In the first ‘qualy’ of the year, the team from Silverstone has already won Mercedeswho in 2022 signed 17 podiums and closed the year with a victory in the penultimate race.
The performance of the AMR23 has also surprised Fernando Alonso himself, who assures that he did not expect to be in the fight with the three teams above. “It was incredible, it’s been a surreal weekend. Too good to be true in every session”, he declared after qualifying.
Alonso set his time after just one lap, while max verstappen, Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz They have succeeded after two attempts. The man from Oviedo finished less than two tenths behind Sainz despite the fact that speed over one lap is the great strength of Ferrari and at the same time the biggest weakness of Aston Martin, which gives him reason to dream.
The Asturian assures that his priorities have changed and this Sunday his objective is to get back on the podium: “It is strange for me to say that we started fifth and we want more. We thought that the first three teams were untouchable with the advantage they had last year, we wanted to lead the middle zone, but now we say that we started fifth and we can fight against Ferrari for the podium. You have to run the race without errors, a good start, good pit-stops. But we are living a dream”
Aston Martin will be strong in the race
The greatest strength of the AMR23 is its consistency in the you take long. The low degradation of tires with a full tank of gasoline presages that Alonso’s race will go from less to more, gaining performance as the laps go by, so attacking the Ferrari should be possible after the first few turns.
The degradation of Ferrari
If Aston Martin grows in the race, the opposite happens to Ferrari. He SF-23 he has a lot of problems in the long runs and his performance plummets when the tires reach the end of their useful life, as could be seen on the last day of pre-season when Alonso ended up being a second faster than Carlos Sainz per lap, for what tomorrow should have the opportunity to attack both the man from Madrid and charles leclerc looking for the podium.
Alonso’s departures
One of the main strengths of the Asturian are his Departures. Tomorrow, starting from fifth place and in the clean area of the grid, he will have a good opportunity to attack the two Ferraris, which last season suffered several problems in the starts. Between the start line and the first corner there are 480 metres, enough distance to gain several positions if the traction is good.
