Fernando Alonso labelled Aston Martin’s 2024 Formula 1 challenger a “different car” compared to pre-season testing after he qualified sixth for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Alonso admitted after Thursday’s practice that “12 months ago we were in a stronger position,” but after coming third in FP2 said he felt “positive” going into qualifying.
The Spaniard claimed a podium in last term’s season opener, but admtted that Aston Martin had grund to recover on its rivals to be in with a chance of replicating that.
However, Alonso landed sixth-place come qualifying, three-tenths back from polesitter Max Verstappen, but ahead of Lewis Hamilton, both McLarens and Sergio Perez.
“Extremely happy,” Alonso reflected. “I think it was a nice surprise to find ourselves competitive, after winter testing we had some doubts in terms of one-lap pace.
“Free practice was a different car, this weekend, we felt more competitive. But normally we run or maybe more engine or less fuel and we find the reality sometimes in qualifying.
“So we were very cautious into qualifying about our possibilities and we found ourselves quite competitive in q1, q2 and now q3 we are in the mix, one-tenth together with the Ferrari, in front of Hamilton, together with the McLarens, so it’s a massive surprise.”
Alonso credited set-up changes to the AMR24 with transforming inconsistencies found in winter testing into a car that he felt “was more connected.”
“We had some difficulties last week in winter to really feel the car and the needs of the car, it was quite inconsistent, it was very windy as well, which never makes testing easy, but changing also through the day,” he explained.
“I think this weekend the set-up changes we are trying, they are doing exactly what we expect from them and this is always a nice thing when you’re trying to fine-tune a Formula 1 car to extract the maximum, so that level of confidence extra on the car I think was the positive thing about this weekend.”
However, a strong qualifying is all well and good, but the points are handed out on race day and Alonso predicts it will be extremely tight.
Again, referring back to testing the Spaniard didn’t feel too great in long runs, so is adopting a wait-and-see approach to see if Friday’s pace translates into Saturday.
“I think we had some so-so runs in winter and also yesterday, we didn’t look particularly good, but let’s see tomorrow,” Alonso added.
“I think it’ll be an extremely tight race, racing in a group of cars is never an easy thing to manage, in terms of tyres and things like that.
“It’s a very very good start, a little bit unexpected.
“We learned a lot of things last year as a team how to be a contender.
“If we want to compete with Ferrari and Mercedes and these teams, we need to raise the level on development, and throughout the season, we started with a good base car but we stuck there for many races, this year we changed the concept of how to design the car and upgrades and things like that, to start that strong it gives me a lot of optimism for the season.”
