Alonso joined Aston Martin after a dismal 2022 marketing campaign during which the Silverstone group completed seventh with simply 55 factors.
Whereas it made encouraging improvement progress all through final season, its big leap in 2023 has been one of many speaking factors of the yr to date, with the Spaniard bagging three consecutive podiums as Aston heads to Baku sitting second within the standings.
The group of formidable billionaire proprietor Lawrence Stroll has the long-term goal of difficult for world titles slightly than podiums, and group boss Mike Krack already revealed Stroll had been pushing the group to attain much more and never sit again after its surprisingly sturdy begin.
However in line with Alonso, his new outfit’s breakthrough over the winter has shortened its deliberate trajectory to the highest by a yr.
“I hoped 2023 to be a studying season and in 2024 possibly to be difficult Ferrari and Mercedes and issues like that,” mentioned Alonso.
“However we challenged them in Bahrain in race one so clearly now the whole lot seems to be extra optimistic.”
Alonso cautioned that the true check of Aston’s progress will observe as soon as rival groups begin bringing sizeable upgrades and the group’s in-season improvement fee might be put to the check, a course of which is able to start in Azerbaijan.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Staff, third place, on the rostrum
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“Now we now have to ship. That is one thing we are going to see very quickly,” he added.
“From Baku, Imola, Barcelona, the groups will begin to convey upgrades to the automotive and we have to even be a prime group in that regard. On-track, but additionally off-track we have to be taught many issues all through this season to be a contender in 2024 hopefully.”
Alonso says the tempo of his and team-mate Lance Stroll’s AMR23 means the group has been in a position to change its method and it now has the luxurious to have extra respiration house to get by means of Q1 and Q2, which was a pipe dream in 2022 for Stroll and former associate Sebastian Vettel.
“We method weekends now trying extra to the highest groups and that modified our method just a little bit in FP1,” Alonso defined.
“It modified our tyre alternatives for qualifying, the runs you do in qualifying. You do not really want to get too loopy as a result of you already know that you’ll undergo Q1 and Q2.
Sure, it is modified rather a lot and it makes issues just a little bit simpler, so proud of that.”