The first Grand Prix of the season took place on Saturday at the Bahrain International Circuit, which gave us a similar podium to last year’s, with the Red Bulls in first and second place and third place for Carlos Sainz, replacing fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who in the 2023 season surprised many with his result in the first race.
This year, however, it looks like a similar story to the second half of 2023 for the Asturian driver, who finished 9th today, scoring just two points for Aston Martin.
In qualifying in Bahrain, everything seemed to go good, as the oldest driver on the grid would take a strong 6th place, which, after today’s result, Alonso would define as a result that put them in an unrealistic position:
“We were not maybe as fast as yesterday. For sure I think the lap was exceptional yesterday and put us on an unrealistic P6, that was not our real position.”
One of the main characteristics of the Silverstone team last year was their lack of consistency. In the first half of the season in general they had good results, with Alonso bagging 6 podiums in the first 8 races. The second half was not so good, since they dropped considerably in the standings. They fell from P2 to 5th place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Following Saturday’s race, they are in the same place where they finished last season. The Spaniard said they have to fix that “deficit” to be able to be in the mix at the front of the grid.
“We are the fifth team at the moment, behind McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, more or less as we were in Abu Dhabi. So we kept it as we finished 2023, and now it’s a long championship where we need to overcome this deficit and try to be in the mix. So yeah, very interesting weeks ahead.”
Comparing the start of this new season with the past one, the Oviedo native commented that in 2023 they started very strong, adding also that the team was not strong enough to maintain that growth like the big teams do.
“I think last year we started on a very good baseline and we were not strong enough as a team to really keep up with the progress that the top teams are making for the season.”
In conclusion, Fernando Alonso stressed that the Mike Krack-led team intends to be much stronger, both on and off the track.
“This year we want to change that we want to be a top team also off track and in the development race and yes, let’s see what we can do.”
