Fernando Alonso has said that fifth place on his debut for Aston Martin is “unreal” and after numerous career choices that haven’t played into his favour, the decision to move to Silverstone based team seems to have paid off with the AMR23 looking like a front running car.
After topping FP2 and FP3, he was many people’s tip for pole, and despite not quite living up to the hype, the Spaniard was delighted with the result and said the whole weekend has felt “too good to be true.”
“It was amazing,” said the two-time world champion. “I mean the whole weekend has been unreal for us.
“It was like too good to be true every session and every performance of the car. And then in qualifying, our expectation was to be around half a second or six tenths off from pole position, so, it was quite right.
“In practice we knew that we were around third or fifth or fourth. “We didn’t know exactly what Ferrari was doing.
“For sure we were behind Red Bull, but I think it was just a couple of milliseconds always that we were in front of them [in practice], so it just looked too good.
“Now there is not much more to downplay anything because this is qualifying, all in the same conditions and we are in the mix with Ferrari and Mercedes. So again, un-real.”
It’s been nearly 10 years since Alonso has found himself in competitive machinery, and admits it feels “strange” to head into a race with a chance of achieving a podium.
“It feels so strange for me to say that we’ll start P5 and maybe we are aiming for more.
“We thought, to be honest, that the first three teams, they were untouchable this year with the advantage they had last year.
“But now we’re saying that we start P5 and maybe we [can] fight with the Ferrari’s for a podium – so this is just incredible.
“So let’s keep going, let’s keep working, keep the feet on the ground and execute the race the best way possible, no mistakes, good start, good pit stops and let’s see where we are. But so far we are living the dream.”
The decision to join Aston Martin from Alpine last year was viewed, at the time, as a backwards step and Alonso admitted his decision was indeed a “bet.”
“I don’t even know what to say, because eight months ago the project was just a bet,” he said.
“I mean, I’m laughing because going for a podium in race one feels, again, too good to be true.”
His ambitions aren’t too out of reach. The AMR23 looked like it was the second fastest car behind Red Bull on the long runs in FP2, and with Ferrari suffering from higher tyre deg, we may well see him standing on the podium once more.
And of course, we can’t forget about the Alonso magic that makes him so special and that given a sniff, he nearly always delivers.
Photo: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team