Aston Marrtin has unveiled the car new Formula One recruit Fernando Alonso will be racing in 2023 alongside Lance Stroll.
Two-time champion Alonso, the grid’s oldest driver at 41, joined the team in place of Sebastian Vettel, who retired at the end of last season.
Alonso, who last won a title in 2006 and an F1 race in 2013, hopes to return to title contention during his three-year Aston Martin contract, with the team promising big things.
The team is close to finishing work on a brand new facility at its Silverstone headquarters, with team boss Lawrence Stroll — father of Lance — wanting to turn it into a legitimate championship challenger.
Despite his long spell away from competitive machinery, Alonso is widely considered to be one of the best drivers of F1’s modern era and his arrival was a massive statement of intent from Aston Martin and Stroll about how serious those ambitions are.
Alonso wants to claim his elusive 33rd win — and potentially, a third championship — with his new team down the line but says no-one in the team is getting carried away with its chances in the short term.
“I’m very motivated and very happy with what I’m seeing,” Alonso said. “This team is not happy with fourth, this team is not happy with third, this team is not happy with second. That’s what I feel being here. But they are not giving expectations that are unrealistic, they know where we are.
“We know last year only three teams finished on the same lap as the leader, it was Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes. Everyone finished one lap behind, including Alpine or McLaren, who finished fourth in the championship. We know those gaps in Formula One are difficult to overcome in one or two months. But let’s see if we can have a good season, enjoy, have good reliability and make sure the team improves over the season.”
Aston Martin’s ambitions are also clear in the design of its 2023 car.
The team has also been signing high-profile personnel from rival teams, with Dan Fallows joining from Red Bull as technical director this year.
The car, dubbed the AMR23, is a clear change from its 2022 predecessor, with a new front wing and a more aggressively designed sidepod area and engine cover.
Fallows said 90 percent of the car is different to last year’s.
“The design team was adamant that it wanted to tackle these regulations without compromise,” Fallows said at Monday’s launch. “We want to move up the grid and start challenging the teams at the front — and you can’t do that by sitting back and being conservative.
“AMR23 is a significant development of the car we refined in the latter half of 2022 — and we have improved it in every critical area. It optimises the solutions we felt would offer us the most performance, and it embodies the joint vision we have embraced and have built together over the recent months.”
Source: www.espn.com