Fernando Alonso has moved to quash any rumours that the 2023 Aston Martin’s car is a copy of Red Bull’s 2022 Formula 1 title-winning machine.
The Spaniard drove an exceptional race to finish third at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix but he was still over 20 seconds behind Sergio Perez in second. The sudden upturn in performance for Aston Martin had seen Helmut Marko take a swipe at the Silverstone-based team and their new design.
Some people have even hinted that Aston Martin could catch Red Bull over the course of the season with their rapid development last year. Alonso, though, wanted to dismiss any suggestion that this season’s Aston Martin is a copy of the 2022 Red Bull.
“There is nothing really to say,” Alonso told the press. “We are just focusing on ourselves and there are very obvious things on the car that are very different.
“It has been a tremendous effort from everyone on the team to build this car. There have been some very unique ideas about the car so I have not been paying attention [to the Red Bull comparisons] because they are not true.”
Biggest improvement
Alonso has seen a lot in his nearly 20 years of racing in F1 but he believes the vast improvements made by Aston Martin from last year to this is the best he has seen outside of a regulation change.
“Ferrari in 2020 or 2021 were very bad, and then last year they were fighting for the championship and won two of the first three Grand Prix of the year,” Alonso said “That was a huge step.
“This is probably the biggest one without a regulation change because the others all came with a regulation change as well as the cost cap which makes it very hard to do that. But we have very talented people in the team and, hopefully, this is only the start.”
