Fernando Alonso has hailed Aston Martin’s performance during qualifying in Bahrain, admitting its pace feels “too good to be true”.
Alonso showed rapid speed through the race weekend, topping two of the three practice sessions.
In qualifying, the two-time World Champion ended up in fifth place, six-tenths down on pole position which was secured by Max Verstappen.
However, Aston Martin’s long-run pace on Friday was highlighted as strong, while Ferrari was noted for having high tyre degradation.
Amid a potential fight for a podium finish in his first race with the Silverstone-based squad, Alonso admits that the situation feels “unreal” to him.
“I’m laughing because going for a podium in race one… It feels too good to be true,” he said.
“For sure what we saw so far on our car and also historically, Aston Martin is very good tyre management. So if we have an opportunity we will take it.”
Aston Martin received a lot of attention post-practice, however Alonso downplayed expectations ahead of qualifying.
The 41-year-old says that Aston Martin anticipated that it would be roughly half a second down on reigning World Champions Red Bull.
“In qualifying our expectation was to be around half of a second from Red Bull… I think we are half a second or sixth-tenths from Red Bull. So it was quite right.
“I don’t know what to say because eight months ago the project was just a bet but now to be, race one with a completely new car which I think we still need to unlock a lot of potential to be in the top five, fighting with Ferrari and Mercedes, it seems a little bit unreal. But we’ll take it for sure.”
Aston Martin is heavily investing in its F1 set-up, with a brand new factory currently under construction at Silverstone.
Despite that, there is strong surprise over the team’s leap in form over one winter break, as it concluded the 2022 championship seventh in the standings.
Alonso says that Aston Martin must wait for another handful of races to properly understand where it sits in the pecking order.
“For sure we need to wait for Jeddah, for Australia,” he said. “I’m curious to see whether we can keep this performance for other races.
“Also on the other hand I think the car we have right now is very basic and we launched and start the season with this completely new concept on the car.
“So I think there’s a lot more to come in terms of development from this project.”
