How McLaren and Aston Martin enjoyed opposing fortunes in F1 2023

McLaren and Aston Martin ended up battling for fourth place in the 2023 Formula 1 constructors’ championship. That was a position it looked like McLaren could never reach early on, and one not good enough for Aston at the same time. But their fortunes waxed and waned in wildly contrasting campaigns. This then, is the timeline to explain it all. 

McLaren’s muted launch 

McLaren unveils the MCL60 at its sprawling Woking headquarters on 13 February, with much to look forward to based on discussions over the team’s upcoming celebrations of the 60th anniversary of its founding – hence the car name. But new team principal Andrea Stella and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown are pointedly downcast in their predictions for the year ahead.

The Italian says that McLaren is “not entirely happy for what is the launch car”, its specification featuring only minor sidepod, engine cover and nose updates. But they promise major upgrades starting in Baku (in April) and still target a top-four finish in the constructors’ points.

Aston’s simultaneous start 

Hours after McLaren’s embargoed unveiling, Aston Martin launches its AMR23. The new car is the first produced by a technical team bolstered by the signings of ex-Red Bull designer Dan Fallows and former Mercedes man Eric Blandin, and the launch features big-ticket new signing Fernando Alonso.

Featuring design cues pioneered by Red Bull in 2022, the new car is described as an “aggressive approach” by Fallows. It emerges with a distinct ‘waterslide’ sidepod treatment. Alonso admits to expecting “difficult races” at the start of the year, but a quiet confidence seems to emanate from the Silverstone squad.

Aston a dark horse after testing  

Aston Martin’s testing programme in Bahrain is challenged by Lance Stroll’s pre-season bike crash, putting the workload on Alonso and reserve Felipe Drugovich. An early electrical glitch for Drugovich nine minutes into the first test day causes a minor scare, but an otherwise problem-free three days in Bahrain end with Aston and Alonso frequently among the frontrunners. This is noted by those close to Aston in 2022, although the team seeks to play down expectations.

“I think we are in a decent place,” Alonso observes after a final-day race run suggests that the team has produced a podium-worthy machine for 2023.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Drugovich replaced Stroll in testing for Aston after the Canadian's bike crash, as it emerged the green team could be a threat in 2023

Alonso’s immediate impact 

The pace demonstrated by Aston Martin in testing carries over. On pure one-lap pace, the green cars seem to be shy of the Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes packages, but race pace proves to be quite a different story. Alonso is fifth on the grid for the Bahrain opener as Stroll recovers from his pre-season hand and toe breaks to qualify eighth, and both improve on those starting berths.

Helpfully, neither Aston driver sustains damage when they briefly touch on the first lap. Alonso’s pass on Carlos Sainz offers fourth, and this becomes third when Charles Leclerc retires to secure a famous first Aston podium finish. Stroll is also impressive, moving past George Russell’s Mercedes to grab sixth despite his injuries.

Disaster strikes McLaren again in Bahrain 

A year on from McLaren’s Bahrain pre-season testing being disrupted by Daniel Ricciardo’s positive COVID-19 test and front brake cooling issues, this time the team loses major time having to repeat work reinforcing its front top/inside wheel covers and again completes the fewest laps. But come the race, the results are worse than many outsiders had feared.

Neither Lando Norris nor Oscar Piastri make Q3, then reliability issues strike both cars in the race. An electrics problem puts Piastri out after 13 laps, while Norris needs six pitstops to top up his engine’s pneumatic pressure and finishes a twice-lapped 17th.

Stevenson saves Alonso’s Saudi success 

Alonso leads the first three laps in Jeddah but lacks the straightline performance to keep Sergio Perez’s Red Bull at bay. He can also do little about Max Verstappen’s recovery from a Q2 exit, but nonetheless hangs on to claim another third place. Or so he thinks.

After the podium celebrations, Alonso is slapped with a 10-second penalty for allegedly failing to properly serve an earlier 5s addition in the pitlane, with a rear jack installed before the five seconds had elapsed. Aston Martin sporting director Andy Stevenson successfully demonstrates that there was no explicit rule against this, rescuing the top-three result.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

A thorough understanding of the rules ensured Alonso retained his silverware in Saudi Arabia

McLaren’s next calamity presages staff changes  

McLaren’s driver line-up lets it down in Jeddah. First Norris needlessly clips a wall in Q1 and qualifies 19th. Then in the race, Piastri tangles with Pierre Gasly and his front wing flies off and is struck by Norris – both their races wrecked in a stroke.

Before round three in Melbourne, technical director James Key departs, with former Ferrari head of vehicle concept David Sanchez rehired for 2024 as one of three technical directors reporting to Stella – including Peter Prodromou as aerodynamics supremo. Former Red Bull chief engineering officer Rob Marshall is announced in late May as joining as technical director, engineering and design from 1 January 2024 with Sanchez.

McLaren’s points and new floor finally arrive 

McLaren finally gets off the board with a solid double-points finish in Melbourne – but it needs the late restart chaos to get there, since Norris and Piastri are still struggling with more drag than many of their rivals. Norris earns credit for his defence against Perez’s Red Bull, as does Piastri for dealing with his home race pressure.

Norris then scores again in Baku, while running McLaren’s new floor plus lower-drag rear wing, but Piastri is very ill. The updates are eagerly anticipated yet bring a modest gain since they’re not aimed at fixing McLaren’s other weakness: slow-speed corners.

Aston’s near miss in Monaco

Alonso finishes third again in Australia, then fourth in Azerbaijan before returning to the podium in Miami. But the AMR23’s strength in slower corners suggests Alonso can fight for victory in Monaco, and he attempts a contra-strategy from starting second on hard tyres to get past polesitter Verstappen. Rain falls late on and Alonso pits – but for medium tyres, rather than intermediates.

The track then dampens significantly, forcing Alonso to follow Verstappen in again the next time around. Alonso refuses to criticise the pit call at the time, but later concedes that an initial switch to inters might have clinched a shock win. In the meantime, McLaren is on poor form in Miami, but manages three points in Monaco, where it unveils its ‘Triple Crown’ celebration livery.

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Running a Triple Crown livery, McLaren can only muster ninth and tenth in Monaco as Alonso comes close to victory

Aston’s Canada updates miss the mark

In May, Aston Martin settles into its plush new F1 facility adjacent to Silverstone, while preparing an update for Canada following lost momentum in Spain. A new bodywork package and floor are flown to Montreal as the team hopes to regain its form – and Alonso’s second-place finish suggests that these have worked.

But the low-downforce environment in Canada has apparently masked some less-desirable attributes, which emerge in a mid-season downturn in form. There are rumours that Aston Martin has had to redesign its nose and front wing amid a fresh flexi-wing clampdown, but this is denied by the team.

July updates transform McLaren’s 2023

After resetting the MCL60’s development baseline in Baku, McLaren’s first major upgrades arrive with a fully redesigned floor, plus sidepod and engine cover alterations (including a revision to internal cooling) in Austria. An outwash front wing is then added at Silverstone.

At its home race, McLaren is now so quick in the high-downforce corners that Lewis Hamilton says it’s “murdering” Mercedes, and Norris even leads Verstappen early on. He eventually follows his Austrian fourth place with seconds at Silverstone and the Hungaroring. Piastri is in the wars in Austria with his non-updated car, but should take a Silverstone podium but for unfortunate pre-safety car pitstop timing, and he’s undone by Norris’s undercut in Hungary.

Aston back on form at Zandvoort

Unable to keep hold of its early form, Aston Martin drops behind Mercedes in the constructors’ standings by the summer break. Zandvoort briefly suggests that it has returned to form, and Alonso proves determined en route to second in a rain-affected race.

Kicking off with a two-for-one move into Hugenholtzbocht to claim third, he then dispatches Norris for second when the rain intensifies on lap two. A slow pitstop sends him down to sixth, but he rallies and works his way back up the order before the worsening rain results in a red flag. Although he puts pressure on Verstappen on the restart, he can’t find enough to deny the home hero.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Alonso and Aston were back on song at Zandvoort, although he again couldn't deny Verstappen in mixed conditions

Spa, Monza and Singapore mixed for McLaren

Between McLaren’s further upgrade pushes in Belgium (with its revised beam wing that aims to improve straightline speed) and Singapore (where it brings another new floor as part of another major car upgrade, this one aimed at addressing the slow-corner weakness), the team has a more difficult run on the aerodynamic efficiency tests at Spa and Monza, plus the changing conditions at Zandvoort.

At Monza, Piastri tags Norris after their stops and the pair are admonished by Stella. Then in Singapore Norris is second again – a race where Aston struggles, lacking rear grip, Alonso makes poor errors at the pitlane entry and heads down an escape road, while Stroll misses out on racing due to his huge Q1 crash.

McLaren misses its best GP victory chance

As F1 heads to two high-speed tracks at Suzuka and in Qatar, the McLaren drivers move to downplay expectations, but these are raised by their strong qualifying performances. Piastri stuns with second on the grid for his first Suzuka race, before Norris jumps him and nearly passes Verstappen at Turn 2. McLaren ends up with a first double podium since winning the 2021 Italian GP, with Piastri finally enjoying the ‘Singapore upgrade’.

In Qatar, Norris rues repeated track-limits issues in the two qualifying sessions, with Piastri topping the sprint shootout and winning the shorter event. He leads home Norris in the tyre-dominated GP, having let him by at Suzuka.

PLUS: An apology to Lando Norris

Aston endures experimental Americas double

Zandvoort appears long since a flash in the pan, the succeeding races less fortuitous for Aston Martin. So the team decides to get a jump on 2024 and experiment with new parts and set-ups at Austin and in Mexico, but to little avail.

Dismal performances in qualifying and the sprint in the United States force the team to break parc ferme and take pitlane starts – which Stroll turns into a commendable recovery effort to nab seventh. Both drivers retire with damage in Mexico, where the team opts to end its “painful” experimentation. “We did a bit too much R&D work in front of you all,” performance director Tom McCullough reflects.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

By the end of the season McLaren was in the ascendancy, although Alonso kept Aston in the hunt

Norris brings Brazil brilliance…

McLaren gets a final visit to the podium thanks to Norris’s superb performance in the Brazilian GP, a day after Verstappen had jumped him off the line from sprint race pole. The Briton makes up for McLaren leaving its GP Q3 runs too late by jumping three cars at the start from sixth and moving to second with Charles Leclerc absent from the front row.

He chases Verstappen after the restart and even attacks for the lead, before deciding it isn’t worth risking damaging his tyres. Piastri is a victim of the first start crash but gets to restart with repairs, one lap down all race.

…as does Alonso at Interlagos

Experimentation over, Aston Martin looks back to normal in Brazil. Stroll and Alonso lock out the second row for the GP. They fall behind Hamilton and Norris at the start of the main race, although Alonso finds his way past his ex-team-mate to claim third. But Perez is reeling him in.

Once they make their second stops, he puts Alonso under the microscope. Alonso’s canny defence – one that lasts 15 laps of brilliant duelling – looks to have run out of steam on the penultimate tour, when Perez passes. But a second wind and poor Perez defence allow Alonso to sensationally return the favour on the final lap. 

McLaren ends 2023 downbeat again

The Las Vegas race is always going to be harder for McLaren with its remaining drag issues and Ferrari’s rise back to the fore, but it ends badly for Norris, who crashes hard. Piastri then shines, rising up the order in the chaotic proceedings, but eventually fades due to his two-stop strategy.

At the Abu Dhabi finale, Norris blows a pole shot with a late Q3 mistake, but McLaren is anyway off the race pace compared to Ferrari and Mercedes. Stella concludes the year wondering, “have we embedded in this development [path], which certainly gave good grip, some elements of possibly the car just losing too much grip too rapidly in some conditions?”

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images

Overhauled by Aston Martin, Alpine never really affected battles at either end of the championship table

Alpine in no man’s land

Perhaps the kindest way to describe Alpine’s 2023 season is ‘neither here nor there’. Too slow to fight the quicker teams and too fast for the slower ones, the team was an outcast and ploughed a lonely furrow in the middle of the championship stakes.

Great individual results from Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly lightly peppered the season, with Ocon’s third in Monaco and fourth at Las Vegas joined by Gasly’s third at Zandvoort and Spa sprint-race podium. Behind closed doors, however, the team faced a series of power struggles – not only in the boardroom, but often between the two drivers. 

Much was made of Ocon’s and Gasly’s history when they were paired up for 2023. Both drivers downplayed their adversarial past and vowed to work together, but the unspoken undercurrent sometimes had a way of seeping out. Remember their restart clash in Melbourne? The Suzuka swap that forced Gasly to cede position to Ocon? The Abu Dhabi undercut that left Gasly behind? 

As then-team principal Otmar Szafnauer said at the start of the season, Alpine was “cautiously optimistic” after bagging fourth in 2022. The team had targeted third, but that proved to be overambitious once the season got under way. Ocon managed to earn the ire of the stewards three times over the Bahrain opener, while Gasly could only collect ninth with a compromised set-up.  

Both drivers scored in Saudi Arabia, prior to their Melbourne clash that erased a potentially large payday, while Azerbaijan was dismal; both Alpines had to start from the pitlane after the sole practice session laid bare further set-up problems, while Gasly faced the brunt of iffy reliability. This led to CEO Laurent Rossi’s explosive Canal+ interview, in which he labelled the team “amateurish”.

While Alpine responded with another double-points finish in Miami, paired with Ocon’s run to third in Monaco, the team was still way off the leading quartet of teams, and was pushed further back in the pecking order when McLaren began to build momentum with its upgrade path.

A lack of consistency reflected Alpine’s inability to progress to the same extent with its mid-season upgrades. Gasly managed just one more podium for the team, when he was promoted to third after Sergio Perez was caught speeding in the pitlane at Zandvoort, and Alpine only broke into the GP top five three times over the season.

Photo by: Alpine

Laurent Rossi was moved on after speaking his mind on French TV

Reliability, although improved from 2022, was another bugbear. Ocon went on a run between Silverstone and Austin where he retired from more races than he finished; three of those retirements from mechanical issues, one with floor damage, and Hungary yielding a double-DNF for the team when the Alpine pair were victims of Zhou Guanyu’s first-corner pinball game.

Ending the year 160 points shy of Aston Martin in the championship underlines the no man’s land that Alpine occupied in 2023, and the parting shot from departing technical chief Pat Fry that the team lacked ambition appeared to be on the money.

The power struggle

After Rossi’s outburst on French TV, it appeared that his days at the helm were numbered. Indeed, he was moved to work on “special projects” at the Renault Group, a term usually reserved for desk clearing. Ex-Ferrari executive Philippe Krief was brought in as his replacement, while Alpine engine chief Bruno Famin was installed as vice-president in a bid to revive team fortunes.

But the axe continued to swing. During the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Alpine dispensed with the services of team principal Szafnauer after just 18 months in charge, and long-serving sporting director Alan Permane was also given his marching orders. Famin was put in direct charge of Alpine’s F1 operation on an interim basis, although may remain in place for 2024 with no known progress on a new permanent team chief.

His goal has been to unite the fractured Enstone and Viry-Chatillon camps, with 2026’s engine formula looming.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Alpine is once again spinning the wheel to find a new team leader