How Alonso took the challenge to Red Bull and enlivened F1 2023

Formula 1 fans really ought to thank Fernando Alonso. After all, consider how even duller the campaign that’s just concluded might have been without his many battling drives behind the dominant Red Bulls. Or indeed, those times when he eclipsed Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez…

Alonso began the year as one of the stories to watch, as he joined a fifth different F1 team of his storied career and made yet another new start, this time at Aston Martin. The team was the dark horse of winter testing thanks to the refinements to a car that had been dubbed a ‘green Red Bull’ following its many in-season changes early in 2022. The updates left Alonso delighted with the car’s predictable handling balance.

Aston led the fight for second in the constructors’ championship throughout the opening phase, as Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren floundered. But Alonso did that largely single-handedly, bringing home 75.5% of the team’s points to the halfway point.

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Lance Stroll did well to contribute eight points with sixth in the Bahrain season opener following wrists and toe injuries from his pre-season cycling accident. But even when those were fully healed by Monaco, Alonso continued to lead the line for Aston.

Alonso’s result in Bahrain had been a “surprise” third place behind the Red Bulls, this performance a comeback drive after unfortunate intra-Aston contact had shuffled him down the order early on. Then he led in Jeddah, jumping Perez off the line before his grid box and pitstop penalties (the latter later rescinded) stole the headlines.

The podium results kept coming. He chased Lewis Hamilton closely to end up third in Australia before the concluding madness kicked off there, then might have maintained a podium streak that lasted until his home race in June but for Charles Leclerc hanging on behind Perez and Verstappen in Baku.

“I was hoping to be in the top 10 regularly,” Alonso says of his pre-2023 expectations. “I was hoping to score points in at least 80% of the races – something like that. I was hoping to be in Q3 50-60% of the time. And I was dreaming to be on the podium one time.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Alonso hugely exceeded his own expectations by taking six podiums in the opening eight races

“I was thinking, ‘OK, the podium is going to be nearly mission impossible – there are two Red Bulls, two Ferraris, two Mercedes and we have to beat Alpine eventually’, because they were P4 last year. The podium seemed like a big target.”

Having achieved that – repeatedly with the AMR23 and its braking strength he loved – Alonso should have been a winner in Monaco but for Aston’s error in fitting medium tyres at what should have been a single pitstop as the rain arrived late on. Alonso refused to criticise his team afterwards, saying “we were brave on the strategy”.

Further glittering results were then harder to come by, despite Alonso ending 2023 feeling “we deserved it more than anyone else this year” when it came to sealing what little victory success Red Bull let fall from its grasp. Nevertheless, he had an unlikely shot at a win thanks to the late restart circumstances in the tricky dry-wet-dry-wet race at Zandvoort. And then there was Brazil.

"I think together with 2012 [when he came so close to that year’s title with Ferrari], it’s the best season for me. Personally, I rate it the best season in my driving and I was happy with everything" Fernando Alonso

By this stage, with three events to run, McLaren had well and truly usurped Aston (and the fleeting threats of Ferrari and Mercedes) to be Red Bull’s most regular challenger. At Interlagos, Alonso had battled past Hamilton at the early restart, and it seemed that an eighth podium of 2023 (the highest total for a non-Red Bull driver) was on for the Spaniard.

Then Perez arrived on his tail. But Alonso, as ever, was undaunted. He produced a 43-lap defence and short late attack that secured his final podium visit of the year and handed Aston valuable momentum heading into 2024.

PLUS: The 10 best race drives of F1 2023

“I’m happy with the personal performance,” reflects Alonso. “I think together with 2012 [when he came so close to that year’s title with Ferrari], it’s the best season for me. Personally, I rate it the best season in my driving and I was happy with everything. Motivated, I was fit, I was performing in difficult conditions sometimes.”

Although Alonso echoes his team’s upper management in “seeing only positives” from 2023, there were low moments. Aston made errors in its floor and sidepod changes just before his run to second place in Canada – that track’s low-downforce nature masking the reality – and a mid-year fallow run followed.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Aston Martin upgrades push the team off course midway through the season

This included a rare Alonso gaffe in his Spa sprint race crash and retirement, while another was his earlier Barcelona Q1 off. He felt the challenging period was made worse by Aston not making ideal set-up choices. Plus, team insiders have admitted that it made tweaks to its front wing around the time of April’s Azerbaijan GP after the FIA had been probing the flex-wing saga. There is, however, no suggestion that Aston had been doing anything against the rules.

Given Alonso’s reputation for challenging his teams when things haven’t been flowing like a “honeymoon”, in the words of Aston team boss Mike Krack, how was he to work with when things got harder in 2023?

PLUS: How McLaren and Aston Martin enjoyed opposing fortunes in F1 2023

“Super-constructive,” Krack adds. “Both drivers, they agreed with each other what were the main problems and it was always constructive. It showed real qualities of the team, of Fernando, of Lance that we stuck together. It was really difficult times, maybe a couple of races [through Austin and Mexico], and I think the relationship became now even stronger through that.”

Alonso is clear where Aston needs to improve for 2024 – a sense he crystallised on after the team experimented with parts it claimed were designated for the AMR24 during the tough events at Austin and in Mexico City.

“We need to find some consistency,” he explains, also pointing out that the AMR23’s main strength came from being kind on its tyres, like the similarly shaped Red Bull RB19. “One of the weak points was the car has to operate in a very narrow window. It’s the same for everybody, but it seems that we’re struggling a little bit and it will be nice if we can always perform at a stable level next year. And also if we can improve the straightline speed.”

Expectations now turn to an even more impressive jump for Aston and Alonso from 2023 to 2024, a year when the two-time world champion will be settled with the squad and will not have to adjust, for example, to the team’s power steering design as he did this year. Aston will also be extracting additional resources from its still-expanding, massively reworked Silverstone factory.

“Now the real difficulty starts,” concludes Alonso, who is clear that he can still reach that third world title with his new, growing team. “Let’s say that that first step to become a top 10 contender is the easiest part. Now comes the tricky period for Aston Martin. I think the next two or three years – to find that extra bit to create something that no one has in that moment, to be creative, to be innovative [is the plan].

“I think that’s maybe the biggest question mark that we need to face and I think no one has the answer…”

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Alonso and Aston Martin know maintaining its current charge up the F1 pecking order will be a tougher task in 2024

Alonso’s 2023 highlights

What does Alonso reckon was his best race performance in 2023? His Bahrain debut with Aston Martin must be in with a shout. A swashbuckling, wild charge back to an unexpected podium – add in the very Alonso aggrandising team radio and it stands out even further. Then there was leading the next race in Jeddah, being in the victory hunt in Monaco, and beating arch-rival Lewis Hamilton to second in Canada even while battling a fuel system problem.

Surely, though, it’s his sterling defence against Sergio Perez through the long final stint in Brazil, which featured Alonso adjusting his lines to gain traction on corner exits against the slippery Red Bull, and had the Spaniard nick third back with a brilliant final-lap pass to secure a final podium of the season.

Not so. It was the race to ninth at Monza, one week on from Alonso threatening Verstappen’s victory at the disrupted Dutch Grand Prix. He made the selection all by himself in a media scrum ahead of the Abu Dhabi finale. Then he doubled down on that choice during a subsequent session with select publications, including Autosport.

"Brazil was a very well executed defensive and strategically complex [race] with all the tyre management, pitstops, lines, decisions. But Monza honestly was just a surviving exercise, because the car was not on the ground, the car was nearly undriveable" Fernando Alonso

“Really?” came our reply. “Monza was better than Brazil?”

“They were very different,” Alonso replies effortlessly. “Brazil was a very well executed defensive and strategically complex [race] with all the tyre management, pitstops, lines, decisions. Yes, Brazil had a level of complexity that was high. But Monza honestly was just a surviving exercise, because the car was not on the ground, the car was nearly undriveable.

“And we had to keep up in the DRS with the McLarens and some cars in front. To finish in the points that race, it was like not matching [anything else]. Something strange. One of those weekends where it seems that the performance from the car and myself – they were in a different dimension, that you struck something that should not be there.

“So, when I crossed the line P9 in Monza, I was happy with the points. And I felt, ‘OK, this was not a normal race, this we should never [have been] P9.’”

Photo by: Erik Junius

Despite many obvious highlights in 2023, Alonso picked a surprise best moment of his season