“We challenged him for the podium, only one second to Charles,” said Alonso of the Baku race. “So that’s very encouraging for us. I think in a bad weekend, let’s say for an Aston, we are fighting for the podium against one of the best weekends for Ferrari.
“They were on pole position on the sprint race, pole position for the main race. And they were just one second in front of us on Sunday. So good news.”
Remarkably four races into to season he lies third in the world championship, behind the Red Bull guys of course, but ahead of the four drivers from Mercedes and Ferrari, none of whom has been able to put together such a consistent campaign.
It’s great story for F1 in a year where Red Bull’s domination in danger of eclipsing everything else, and even those who traditionally have never been fans of Alonso would be happy to see circumstances unfold that allow the wily old fox to score a victory for Aston, either before or after his 42nd birthday in July.
Perhaps the most remarkable statistic is that his 32nd and most recent victory was achieved on home ground in Barcelona on May 12th 2013. In other words we are just a week away from the 10th anniversary…
Alonso remains confident that, inspired by technical director Dan Fallows, – in retrospect a brilliant signing by team boss Lawrence Stroll – the team can keep up in the development race. However at the same time he makes it clear that, on balance, form is better than anyone could have realistically expected.
“It will change I think track to track, depending on the characteristics, but within one-tenth up and down. I heard that Mercedes and Ferrari will bring big things in Imola.
“If we can still outscore them on Sunday, that’s good news” Fernando Alonso
“We have scheduled some upgrades that you will see from time to time in the year, but I don’t know, for us it’s just a gift, where we are. We didn’t expect to be in this position.
“So we just race every Sunday calmly, without pressure, and if we can still outscore them on Sunday, that’s good news. If we can’t, because we cannot follow their progress that they are making, we will prepare for 2024 for the best way possible.
“But we are growing as a team. We are in a position that we didn’t expect with a very fast car. And we are trying to make the team strong in in all the other areas where we are still not maybe at the at the highest level.”