Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, Albert Park, 2023

Alonso wary of fightback from Mercedes and Ferrari in coming races

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In the round-up: Fernando Alonso expects Aston Martin’s rivals to come back at them strongly over the coming races.

In brief

Alonso predicts big changes in car performance

Although Aston Martin have emerged as the closest threat to Red Bull over the opening races, Alonso says it’s too soon to expect the team will be competitive at every venue. He also expects their closest rivals, Mercedes and Ferrari, will introduce upgrades to close the gap between them after the long April break.

“After a few events from now on, I think the cars will change a lot, in a few areas and a few developments,” Alonso predicted.

“We have to wait and see,” he added. “I think very soon, from Baku or Imola, we will see the teams changing a few parts in the cars. And maybe that changes, also, how competitive you feel.”

The team was “extremely happy with the performance of the car” over the opening two races. “It was better than expected, especially in Jeddah I think it was a nice surprise.”

Changing rules in response to Red Bull dominance ‘unfair’

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says it would not be fair to change the regulations to encourage a closer championship fight following Red Bull’s dominant start to the season.

“You can’t just do something just because someone else is faster. It’s not fair,” Steiner told Motorsport Total.

“Everyone will work hard and you must never forget that Red Bull got the penalty from last year,” added Steiner, who worked for Red Bull before taking up the reins at Haas. “They can develop less in the wind tunnel this year, so theoretically they can’t go much further.”

“Everyone will catch up and hopefully we can find out how Red Bull got this advantage and we can copy it or do something similar.”

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Comment of the day

Do Ferrari already need to start thinking more about next season than the current one?

Somewhat disappointingly they probably know already that the 2023 car is never going to beat the Red Bull over a full season. I think Ferrari are going to have a battle on their hands to come second.

But maybe second or third doesn’t really make much difference though in the greater scheme. As others have said Vasseur will hope to lead them to something more competitive in 2024.
Phil Norman (@Phil-f1-21)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Aniket Garg!

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Alonso wary of fightback from Mercedes and Ferrari in coming races”

  1. The Vietnamese GP project failed & got abandoned ’for good’ in 2021, so how could it realistically become a viable option again?
    Therefore, I’m somewhatskeptical about the report’s credibility.

    1. Apparently I got somewhat & skeptical together without a gap when typing on a different device.

      1. Must be a German device

  2. I do like the van in the top left of that image. Never going to win though – Senna was too good that day.

    In all seriousness though, I’m going to guess it’s an ambulance. Where did it peel off the track? Did it do a full lap? If so, that must have been pretty stressful. Donnington is short by F1 standards. Getting back round to the pit entry in the wet before Senna & Prost came back around is Mr. Bean level panic inducing.

    1. some racing fan
      11th April 2023, 6:35

      You know what they could do? They could extend the approach to the Melbourne hairpin to the bottom of the hill, where it was in the 1930s. I did some measurements and it would extend the track to about 3.4 miles.

    2. I don’t know exactly what it was like in 1993, but there is a paddock access gate just after the pit exit. If I had to guess I’d say the ambulance probably pulled off the track there. Alternatively there is an escape road down the hill after Hollywood, which is where the ambulance waits these days.

      1. @red-andy Yeah, I feel a bit daft suggesting an ambulance could do a full lap behind the pack. They were doing less than 1m 30s. I’ve never driven an ambulance, or around Donington but I imagine less than 3mins is probably optimistic no matter how skilled the ambulance driver / paramedic is.

        Sillier still, surely fairly quickly they’d have been better off doing a 180 and going back the other way they’d be so far behind the pack. Like you say they probably left the track at the end of straight or at the bottom of the hill.

        Still must have been an interesting day for whomever was behind the wheel. Chasing Senna & Prost in a van, even if it was for just a few hundred metres.

    3. No danger of the crew getting that far, early in 1993 – they’d have to stop somewhere on lap 1 and deal with a crash involving Michael Andretti (I think it was Wendlinger he hit this time)

  3. “You can’t just do something just because someone else is faster. It’s not fair,” Steiner told Motorsport Total.

    So, the regulation mandating the triangular cutout on the floor edge aimed at reducing Mercedes dominance wasn’t fair?
    The regulation banning DAS (which only Mercedes had) wasn’t fair?

    1. Definitely good points but I’d like to think Steiner was implying any reg change in the middle of the season. Those were banned after the end of a full season/multiple seasons. They definitely were going after the Merc dominance at the end of the 2017-2021 aero era, but they at least waited to change it over the winter prior to a new season. But even that was a bit extreme and essentially targeted a single team, they really should not have been so egregious against one team that continually mastered the regs.

      1. I think “party mode” was banned mid season… and the introduction of same engine mode for qualifying and race iirc was mid season too…

        Then again, let’s wait for the season end for any change in regulation if need be…

        1. Agreed. Mid season regulations changes should only ever be for safety reasons, IMHO. All teams work to the same rulebook, if it’s not fair to change them mid season after designs have been completed.

  4. BTW. Struggling to think of stuff Ferrari did that was legal and gave them and advantage.

    1. lol

  5. Thank you for the COTD @keithcollantine.

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