“The work Aston Martin did over the winter was incredible, we ended up having the second best car in the race. It’s really unreal.” Fernando Alonso’s honeyed words at the end of the first race in Bahrain are the photograph of a driver who has found in his hands a car capable of enhancing his talent, and not just blunt weapons.
Can a third place be worth as much as a victory? On a simple numerical level, clearly not, but from the point of view of emotions on the track and expectations, in what case the answer seems to be affirmative. That the AMR23 could prove to be a good single-seater had already been glimpsed in the pre-season tests, but between being the reference car in the midfield and reaching the podium, beating Ferrari and Mercedes on the pace, one more step was needed.
The six tenths scored in qualifying could have seemed like an important loss, but having already finished just twenty hundredths from Sainz and in front of the two Mercedes was an important sign that the good performance of the car was not just a winter mirage, but something concrete.
If twelve months ago on this same track Aston Martin fought against a badly born project to avoid the last row, this year the English team has gone well beyond its own predictions, hitting a podium as beautiful as it is sweaty.
However, net of the good third place finish, the Spaniard’s race was not as simple and “smooth” as the final result might suggest, because the two positions lost at the start greatly complicated a day in which they could have also picked up something more. Indeed, after being attacked by Lewis Hamilton, Alonso had involuntarily been touched at the rear, thus also losing his position on the other Mercedes, that of George Russell.
This had caused him to fall into a sort of little train behind the two Stella riders, who were good at maintaining pace as long as the tires remained in good condition. But when the latter began to give in feeling the deterioration and Russell lost pace against his teammate, the situation took a completely different turn.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W14, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
The two-time world champion was able to increase the pressure on those in front of him, completing without too much difficulty the attack on Russell, who had been sacrificed by Mercedes to anticipate Hamilton’s stop. The interesting aspect of this stage of the race mainly concerns the management of Stroll, who in the meantime had rejoined the group thus forming a trio.
Knowing that Russell would stop immediately after Alonso overtook him and they would not be able to complete a double pit stop because the two AMR23s were too close, the Aston Martin engineers had chosen to leave the Canadian on track for another lap on the soft used to lengthen the stint, even if this would have meant finding himself four seconds behind the British after the stop.
In the second stint Alonso also faster than Leclerc
In many ways, the second stint followed the same lines as the first, with the difference that, due to the waltz of the pit stops, Alonso found himself about six and a half seconds behind Hamilton, who, in turn, had a delay of only two seconds from Sainz. Lap after lap the comeback had become more and more concrete with an unsustainable pace for the seven-time world champion, who in less than ten laps had seen his lead reduced to less than two seconds.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing AMR23
Photo by: Erik Junius
Compared to the first part of the race, in this case there is an interesting element to underline. If the use of the soft tire and a full load of fuel had exacerbated the degradation of the tires highlighting the difficulties of the W14, on the hard tire that consumption was considerably reduced, so much so that at the moment of the second early stop, Hamilton actually wanted to continue .
The difference in wheelbase between the English and the Asturian, therefore, is not directly attributable to the management of the tyres, which clearly played a role, albeit secondary, but rather to the differences in terms of quality of the cars.
Looking at the telemetry, the first element that catches the eye is the difference in pace in the fastest and most demanding corners for the tyres, such as the rapid 5-6-7 sequence as well as turns 11 and 12, where Alonso was able to maintain minimum speeds higher between 4 and 7 km/h despite a large first coasting of the 13. A central aspect, because it underlines the good qualities of the AMR23 in terms of overall aerodynamic load, an aspect that can considerably reward over long distances.
However, once arrived in the dirty wake of the Englishman, the recovery mission had entered its most complex phase, because it was one thing to express one’s pace in clean air, another was to find that difference in pace useful for finding with a certain ease overtaking.
After a few laps in a deadlock, Mercedes once again chose to take matters into their own hands, anticipating the pit stop for fear that Aston Martin might attempt an undercut to quickly get rid of the problem.
What is interesting to point out is that in the second stint, Alonso was faster not only than Hamilton and Sainz, but also than Leclerc himself, who was in third position at the time. Although the Monegasque was in the pace management phase, we must not forget that in the central part of the race Alonso also had to deal with Russell and Bottas, losing a couple of seconds compared to his potential.
Alonso – second stint
Leclerc – second stint
Hamilton – secondo stint
Sainz – second stint
37,542 38,477 38,308 37,985 38,139 (passa Bottas) 37,953 38,527 38,433 38,124 38,031 38,617 38,161 38,361 37,798 38,704 38,287 38,318 37,858 38,69 38,21 38,407 37,631 38,684 38,096 38,2 37,753 38,478 38,24 37,853 38,162 38,581 38,453 37,878 38,054 38,46 38,597 38,139 37,972 38,384 38,314 38,127 38,541 38,367 38,571 38,612 39,668 38,29 38,331 38,199 38,814 38,339 38,423 38,585 38,618 38,369 38,474 38,282 38,447 38,265 38,55 38,009 38,39 38,38 38,601 37,871 38,746 37,769 38,948 Media: 38,13 Media: 38,32 Average: 38.46
Media: 37,63
One last stint as a star performer
After the second and final stop, the battle had finally heated up, with the Spaniard and Hamilton starting a beautiful duel. The aspect that most caught our attention was the ease with which the Aston Martin standard bearer could paint the trajectories without awe, one of the elements that then led to that splendid maneuver at the corner of turn 10.
“We weren’t very fast on the straight” – explained Alonso in the interviews referring to the low top speeds of the AMR23 -. “Usually you go through Turn 1 or Turn 4, but I think I passed Lewis at Turn 10 and Carlos at Turn 11. So, it’s not the normal places, because we couldn’t match their straight-line speed. So, yes, we had to do something special in turns 10 and 11, changing the line, and then overtaking.”
The qualities in terms of aerodynamic load offered by the “verdona” enhanced the style and attacks of Alonso, who, once he passed Hamilton, then immediately set about chasing the second Ferrari, that of Carlos Sainz. A comeback which, in reality, did not require many rounds, but which once again offers some noteworthy ideas.
Bahrain – Telemetry gara Alonso – Sainz
Photo by: Gianluca D’Alessandro
Paying attention to the telemetry, it can be seen that after ten laps from the start of the stint, Sainz was already in a rather pronounced tire saving mode, so much so that he repeatedly underlined to his engineers via radio how, if he had to push, he would struggled to reach the finish line.
An aspect that was particularly visible in the fast sequence of the second split and in the long bend 12-13, where the Ferrari driver was forced to use a lower gear, accusing a gap in terms of speed that even reached 11 km/h.
Given such a large difference in pace, it should therefore not be surprising if Sainz, in any case the protagonist of a subdued day, failed to keep his compatriot behind him for a long time. Indeed, once the overtaking was completed, Alonso was able to trim a good nine seconds in the space of eleven laps, confirming an overwhelming superiority.
Alonso – third stint
Sainz – second stint
36,156 37,548 37,431 37,475 37,002 (passa Hamilton) 37,441 37,243 37,706 37,208 37,13 VSC 37,444 36,334 37,403 36,911 37,587 37,022 VSC 37,931 (passa Sainz) 37,375 37,087 37,294 37,326 37,389 36,783 39,561 (passato da Alonso) 36,726 37,844 36,331 38,222 36,96 37,897 37 .01 37.765 37.01 37.604 37.599 37.672 37.662 37.49 37.473 37.66 37.422 37.694 37.821 38.126 38.021 Average:37.07 Average: 37.63
“Regarding race pace, obviously we lost time in the first stint behind the Mercedes. In the middle stint I had to pass George and Valtteri. And then in the final stint I had to pass Lewis and Carlos. So overall, I’m sure that we lost 10 or 15 seconds in all these battles,” explained the two-time world champion in interviews, before underlining how in the final laps he had raised the pace avoiding the curbs to bring the car to the finish line without any surprises regarding reliability.
The AMR23 is a car that shows load and good balance
Compared to last season’s car, the AMR23 seems to have been born immediately in the right direction, as one of those single-seaters that is ready and well balanced right from the first laps, demonstrating an excellent job in every aspect during the winter break.
Although it doesn’t seem to enjoy top-of-the-class aerodynamic efficiency, the situation is different in terms of pure aerodynamic load where, instead, the new car seems to excel, guaranteeing drivers a car that, up to now, has proved to be reactive and easy to drive. Unlike what happened, for example, with Ferrari, the characteristics of the Sakhir track seem to have highlighted its strengths, not only in terms of aerodynamics, but also in terms of tire management.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23, third place, arrives at the Parc Ferme
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
A strength shared with the 2022 single-seater which, although it showed some more difficulties in making the tires work in the attack on the time, over the long run was able to be very gentle in managing the tires. This year the engineers managed to make the single-seater more competitive even on the flying lap, although something is still missing on Saturday to take the next step.
“I think in terms of (managing the tyres), yes, it seems like one of the strengths of our car, a legacy from last year, because in 2022 it was very strong on Sundays. We try to keep that theme on the car and to improve on Saturday, which was perhaps last year’s weak point for the team. And yesterday we weren’t very competitive either,” explained Alonso.
Lawrence Stroll has promised that Aston Martin will carry out a rather aggressive development program during the year. It will be interesting to see what the engineers come up with at the new factory at Silverstone.
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