Fernando Alonso is already shocked at Aston Martin Racing after just a few hours at the end of the 2022 season, Fernando Alonso is already looking ahead to Formula 1 2023. And for good reason, the Spanish driver has already discovered his new car at Aston Martin with an early test, the car stripped of team sponsors at Alpine’s behest. At the wheel of the plain green car on Tuesday for the tests in Abu Dhabi, and he already seems to be impressed.

After a very delicate second half of the season at Alpine, marked by tensions with his management and with Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso has turned the page on 2022 with relief and is now concentrating on 2023, the season during which he will be at the wheel of the Aston Martin car left free by Sebastian Vettel.

And this Tuesday, the Spaniard discovered his new car during post-season testing in Abu Dhabi. And one thing is certain, Fernando Alonso is thrilled.

“Now I’m more than 100% certain…”

“When I signed for Aston Martin I was 90% happy, when they started to improve and finish the season on a high, I was 100%, this morning I was 100%, now I’m more than 100%,

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by everything, but this year’s car is not close to what we’re going to run next year, so there’s nothing to be confident about or anything like that, there’s not going to be continuity with this car,

“For sure they had a very strong weekend here, Sebastian qualified ahead of me, so I don’t think there was much difference between Aston and Alpine over the weekend, and I felt basically the same as well, I felt a very competitive car,” the Spanish driver said in a statement reported by the French website, Nextgen-auto.com.

“97 laps without any problems, that’s exceptional”

“The car was behaving well. We had some concerns about the steering response, because with Alpine in the first year we had to work a lot for almost five months on the assistance and the steering feedback. We had some concerns that we’ve talked about in the last few weeks, so it was a nice surprise to see that I felt good with the Aston Martin system and we didn’t need to change much,

“It’s obviously very useful when you have a direct comparison from two days ago, on the same circuit, in the same conditions. It’s wonderful because you can spot a lot of things (…)

“When they told me the engine mileage last night, I was worried, because I said that number is a bit high by my standards. But we did 97 laps without a problem, so it’s exceptional, for sure,” added Fernando Alonso, already impressed by Aston Martin.