It’s early days but it’s safe to say Fernando Alonso‘s surprise move to Aston Martin is paying dividends… quite literally.
The Spaniard rolled back the years on Sunday to clinch his 99th podium in Formula 1 at the season-opening 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, and on Monday, the 41-year-old’s heroics hit the London Stock Exchange.
In fact, Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holding Plc’s share price rose by as much as 25 per cent at times, with analysts attributing a portion of the surge to the result in Bahrain.
Although this figure levelled off slightly, at the end of Monday the share price stood at 276.1 pence, up 15 per cent and at its highest since September 9 2022.
It continued to increase to 297 pence at close of play on Tuesday, a further 7.57 per cent boost for the luxury sports car brand.
Can Aston Martin maintain form?
One of the questions for the Silverstone-based team, now that they have shown what they’re capable of, is can they deliver these kind of performances across an entire season?
The team decided to follow in the design footsteps of Red Bull under the guidance of Dan Fallows, who worked alongside Adrian Newey for more than a decade at the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
That should stand them in good stead, especially as Red Bull and Max Verstappen stand on the precipice of another period of F1 domination.
However, Ferrari and Mercedes will be desperate to make inroads into their advantage, with Toto Wolff admitting his team may look to the Aston Martin blueprint in a bid to bridge at least some of the gap in 2023.
That means even if, as many suspect, Red Bull cruise to world championship honours, we could yet see a pretty tasty battle for the best of the rest crown.