Opponents impressed with Aston Martin’s progress

Red Bull Racing and Ferrari consider Aston Martin a serious rival – the speed Fernando Alonso showed in testing was confirmed in the first practice session in Bahrain.

The two-time world champion set a second fastest time in the first session at the Sakhir circuit and squeezed between two Red Bull drivers, less than half a second behind Sergio Pérez.

During today’s press conference, Christian Horner and Frederic Vasseur admitted that the progress of the Silverstone team is really impressive.

“They have a great car and in last week’s testing they showed impressive race pace,” said Horner. – I don’t know what Fernando takes there, but it seems that he is just burning with the desire to succeed and looks great behind the wheel of the AMR23. I think they can present a real surprise this year.

Perhaps they can be considered a kind of “grey horse”. All this confirms that the middle team can take a leap forward. These are just first impressions though, let’s see how they will look on long sets of circles in practice two, then their results in qualifying and in the race.

Vasser, the head of the Scuderia, agrees: “Certainly, in my opinion, they have taken a huge step forward compared to what it was a year ago – think of what happened in Bahrain in 2022. And today they look very good, but let’s see what happens on Saturday and Sunday. After one training it is difficult to get the full picture.”

Andrea Stella, the head of McLaren, added that Aston Martin’s progress will be a source of additional motivation for his team: “I think this example shows that this kind of breakthrough is possible. We face the same challenges. The way the work on the modernization of our car is progressing is encouraging, but the most important thing is that the results of this can be seen on the track. For us, the progress of our opponents is more of a reason to put even more effort into improving.”