Alonso takes aim at past F1 employers over desire

Fernando Alonso says he has been energised by the desire of new employers Aston Martin to aim for overall honours in Formula 1 compared to some of his past teams.

Alonso has joined Aston Martin on a multi-year deal from 2023 after spending two seasons competing for Alpine.

Aston Martin presented its 2023 car, the AMR23, at is expanding Silverstone facility on Monday, with the team having invested and recruited heavily under owner Lawrence Stroll.

Aston Martin, through its 32-year history in various guises, has never competed for world titles and it has only taken a handful of victories – as Jordan in 1998/99 and 2003, and as Racing Point in 2020.

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Alonso believes this heritage – allied with Stroll’s investment – has created a hungry culture at Aston Martin.

“Everyone here is humble, everyone here is hungry for success,” Alonso said.

“Maybe they didn’t [have the] experience of fighting for wins, championships or podiums every weekend.

“They trust in themselves, they have self-confidence and know they can achieve that – they never did yet.

“This is different compared to any team that I joined in the last few occasions where maybe they had success in the past and were just in a comfortable position – they were fourth and happy with fourth, fifth and happy with fifth, if we were seventh there were celebrations.

“Here there are no celebrations until we win and this is very appealing.”

Alonso reckons Aston Martin’s high-profile recruitments, such as hiring Dan Fallows from Red Bull and Eric Blandin from Mercedes as Technical Director and Deputy Technical Director respectively, indicates that desire.

“We have the leadership of Lawrence – he had a lot of success in his life and I see there is no doubt that F1 will be no different, he will succeed sooner or later,” he said. “That’s very motivating.

“The new people joining the team, Dan, Eric, the best people, Aston went there [to other teams] and convinced them [to join], so there is something going on in this team making it special.

“We have the investment, the facilities and the talent, so it is a matter of time – unfortunately I’m not 20 [years old] but I’ll do my best.”